Germany: Neo-nazi bomb-plotters jailed
01 March 2005
The trial against neo-nazis Martin Wiese (29), Karl-Heinz Statzberger (24), Alexander Maetzing (28) and David Schulz (22) concluded on 4 May, when they were sentenced to 7 years, four years and three months, five years and nine months and two years and three months respectively. All four, and in separate proceedings four more members of the
Kameradschaft Süd ("Comradeship South"), were facing charges of membership of a terrorist organisation and some of violating the firearms law (see
Statewatch Vol 15 no 1).
On 8 March, the trial against Wiese had taken an unexpected turn when two of the accused, Maetzing and Schulz, incriminated Wiese by admitting their guilt. All four had at first denied charges of terrorism and the planning of a bomb attack at the inauguration ceremony of the Jewish cultural centre in Munich. Schulz admitted that the group had carried out target practice with airguns which was intended to serve the "later use of live ammunition". He also admitted knowing of the group's explosives depot and "having had no doubt" about its intended use for bomb attacks. Maetzing admitted that the group had discussed an attack on the Jewish cultural centre in Munich for 9 November 2003 several times but said there had been no "detailed plan" at the time of his arrest, which was a few months before the remainder of the group was arrested.
Presiding judge Bernd von Heintschel-Heinegg believed that there had been no "detailed plan" but argued that the group fulfilled the definition of a terrorist organisation because "the will to commit murder has to be present, and of this the court is convinced." Further, he reasoned that "the [group's] aim to abolish the free democratic legal order was intended to be carried out through a bloody revolution." In April, in a parallel trial against four more members of the
Comradeship South, younger members of the group were given probation of 16 to 22 months. They received a lighter sentence on the grounds of their age and because they promised to leave the far-right scene. They included an 18-year old female apprentice (18 months on probation), a 20-year old female school pupil (22 months on probation), a 23-year old woman (18 months on probation) and a 19-year old male school pupil (16 months on probation).
No further comment was made by the court about the involvement of the secret service informant Didier Magnien in buying the explosives and allegedly acting as an agent provocateur in the group. Magnien and other group members were actively carrying out so-called "anti-anti-fascist" work, which consisted of collecting information and personal details on members of the left-wing scene, journalists and politicians and compiling a hitlist to attack them. Those targeted complained that they read about their inclusion on the hitlist in the newspapers rather than the police and authorities informing them.
Meanwhile, anti-fascist groups are reporting the continued activities of neo-nazis in Munich. On 8 May it was reported that the police brutally held back a counter-demonstration of around 2,000 people who tried to stop a nazi rally on the Marienplatz on the anniversary of Germany's liberation from the nazi regime. Eighteen arrests were made. The city of Munich had tried to ban the nazi rally using a newly passed law allowing for banning demonstrations at places of particular symbolic value, arguing that the Marienplatz had been a symbolic place for the nazi regime as the fascist propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels had announced the beginning of the Reichspogromnacht from there in 1938. The Bavarian administrative court however disagreed and finally allowed the rally to take place.
junge Welt 10.05.05; Jungle World 11.5.05; Süddeutsche Zeitung 9.3.05
For regular updates about the far-right in Munich see http://www.indynews.net/inn/news/muenchen1/