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Reunited Germany - The New Danger
GERMANY
Police smash nazi terror conspiracy
Searchlight October 2003
From Werner Kleinbeck in Berlin
POLICE RAIDS in Munich and east Germany on 9 September have thwarted a
plot to bomb a synagogue and netted nine would-be nazi terrorists and a
large quantity of bomb-making material and weapons.
In Munich, police seized 1.7 kg of high explosive TNT, one of the largest
hauls ever taken from right-wing extremists. A 20-person Special
Commission is continuing the investigation of the arrested nazis, who are
suspected of conspiring to cause explosions. In total, 14 kg of explosives
were confiscated, as well as firearms, hand-grenades, ammunition and a
large amount of propaganda material.
The TNT was to have been used to bomb a ceremony in Munich on 9 November,
at which President Johannes Rau was going to lay the foundation stone for
a new synagogue and Jewish community centre. The date marks the
anniversary of Hitler's abortive 1923 Munich putsch and the Kristallnacht
pogrom of 1938, when Nazis smashed Jewish property. A large number of
people, including Paul Spiegel, the head of Germany's Jewish community,
had been expected to attend the ceremony. The attack could have caused
horrific carnage.
The president of the Jewish community in Munich, Charlotte Knobloch,
expressed shock at the news of the planned outrage. "Just the fact that we
now have to take great care again", she said, "is an absolute catastrophe
for us."
The raids in Munich captured three prominent activists of the so-called
Kameradschaft Slid, one an 18-year-old woman. A fourth man, Alexander
Metzing, already in custody for attempted murder, is also under enquiry in
connection with the plot. The investigation has been taken over by the
Federal State Prosecutor's Office, an indication of how seriously it is
being taken.The nazis were also preparing an attack on Franz Maget, a
senior Bavarian Social Democrat. Other targets included mosques and a
Greek school.
The police discoveries followed an investigation into the beating of a
Munich nazi who tried to defect from the far right earlier in the summer.
Two of the men arrested in the city are known to have taken part in the
beating. The police briefly detained two other extremists in Brandenburg
and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern after searching their homes.
In an unusual step, police in Munich released the name
of one of those arrested. Martin Wiese, 27, is the leader of Kameradschaft
Sud. He was active in organising counter-demonstrations in Munich against
the travelling "Crimes of the Wehrmacht" exhibition, together with two
leading nazis, Christian Worch and Steffen Hupka. In March, Wiese led a
protest against the Iraq war at a US Army training area in Grafenwohr and
in August he was prominent at the Rudolf Hess memorial march in Wunsiedel.
Two of those arrested have been held on suspicion of belonging to a
terrorist group. More arrests are expected.
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Meanwhile, the trial of three alleged members of the notorious nazi hate
rock band Landser is continuing in Berlin. Michael Regener, 38, and Andre
Moericke, 37, both from Berlin and Christian Wendorff, 27, from Potsdam
are charged with "forming a criminal gang". The court has had to listen to
the band's music as evidence, to the glee of the rabble of tattooed nazis
who have packed out the public gallery.
Experts on hate music have called the songs "musical accompaniment to
murder". This is literally the case, as music by Landser is known to have
been played at the scene of at least two racist murders, those of the
Algerian refugee Farid Guendoul in Guben and of Alberto Adriano in Dessau.
Little recognition of this has filtered through to the court, nor has it
really appreciated that music is now a key medium for the transmission of
nazi ideas and for recruitment to the nazi scene. Indeed, the nazis feel
so little threatened that they have turned the courtroom into a kind of
drop-in centre with prominent figures such as Jean-Rene Bauer and Marcus
Bischoff drifting by to watch the proceedings.
Bauer is a thug who belongs to the nazi rocker gang "The Vandals" and has
been convicted for illegal possession of firearms, while the recently
jailed Bischoff is infamous for his declaration that "the time is ripe for
White Aryan Resistance".
The three accused have had little to say, leaving some of the witnesses to
steal the show. A star witness was Thorsten Heise, the internationally
known nazi thug. Heise, 34, was called because the prosecutors believe he
was present when the banned Landser CD, Republik der Strolche, was
recorded in Sweden at a property owned by the now-dead Marcel Schilf.
Questioned about this, Heise, himself currently the subject of
prosecution, pleaded amnesia and launched into a litany of praise and
publicity puff for Landser. Other nazi witnesses, too, have displayed
similarly remarkable lapses of memory when cross-examined.
Although the federal authorities see the current trial as a precedent, as
it is the first to involve charges of forming a criminal gang brought
against a band, the nazis have managed to reduce it to a provincial farce.
A verdict is expected in October but the listless way the evidence of
Landser's activities and its international links is being handled does not
augur a satisfactory outcome.
Searchlight October 2003 26
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17-10-03 |
