Attack in Halle (Saale) 2019

Synagogue from Halle at the back, entrance to the Jewish cemetery at the front (2015)

The attack in Halle (Saale) on October 9, 2019 was the attempt of a mass murder of Jews on Yom Kippur , the highest Jewish holiday . The right-wing extremist Stephan Balliet (B.) tried by force of arms in the synagogue in Paulusviertel penetrate to kill assembled there people. After this failed, he shot the passer-by Jana Lange in front of the building and shortly afterwards the guest Kevin Schwarze in a kebab snack. The date, target and the anti-Semitic motives for the attack on the synagogue were previously published on the Internetannounced. He broadcast the course of the crime as a live stream using a helmet camera . During his escape, he shot two people injured and tried to shoot others. He was eventually arrested by two patrol officers.

B. confessed and was charged with two murders and 68 attempted murders on April 16, 2020 . From July 21, 2020, the Naumburg Higher Regional Court conducted criminal proceedings against him at the Magdeburg Regional Court and sentenced him to life imprisonment with subsequent preventive detention on December 21, 2020 .

The fact

Motifs

Shortly before the attack, a link to a letter of confession from the perpetrator appeared on the “Meguca” image board in English. In it he gave information about his plans and his motives, especially his anti-Semitism : Originally, he wanted to storm a mosque or an anti- fascist center because they were poorly guarded. But he wanted to primarily murder Jews, as they were also behind Muslim immigration to Europe. He had chosen the Halle synagogue as a destination because it was the closest place where he could find Jews. He chose Yom Kippur because he hoped that many “non-religious Jews” would also be in the synagogue that day. He deliberately refrained from scouting them in order not to attract attention. According to the letter, the author believed in a world Jewish conspiracy and wanted to kill as many Jews as possible indiscriminately in the synagogue. If he kills “only one Jew”, it is worth the attack. He also described in detail how he had made two primitive shotguns, two submachine guns, and the ammunition for them. With his assassination attempt he also wanted to prove the effectiveness of self-made weapons.

In a PDF file entitled “Documentation”, the author named three goals: “1. Prove the feasibility of improvised weapons; 2. Raise the morale of other oppressed whites by disseminating the combat material; 3. Kill as many anti-whites as possible, preferably Jews; Bonus: Don't die. ”He explicitly urged his readers to imitate them, but warned against the“ ZOG ”. This abbreviation for “ Zionist Occupied Government ” has been widespread among neo-Nazis for decades and describes their conspiracy theory for governments allegedly ruled by Jews, especially in the USA and Germany. On the last page was a list of achievements ("successes") that exist for the murders of Jews, Muslims , Christians , communists and blacks . He referred to reward systems in computer games and highscore tables for murderers, assassins and terrorists in right-wing extremist forums. The Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik had already described his murder plan in a text published in advance as a computer game with levels to be reached . The perpetrator from Halle thus joined an internet scene of right- wing terrorists who imitate each other in order to motivate as many imitators as possible.

The perpetrator showed and used the same weapons against the same target as described in the confessional texts in his live stream. Accordingly, he had written this. Then he saw himself as a fighter in a race war with the aim of murdering as many Jews as possible. Although he did not scout the synagogue in Halle, he expected not to get inside. So he planned to start fires with explosive devices to drive the visitors outside. He described the desired course of action using expressions from first-person shooter games. From this advanced “gamification” of terror, investigators conclude that he has been in online forums for some time, where mass murders are rated with points and rankings, victims are mocked and hateful comments are exchanged against certain minorities and women. There he had an audience of accomplices and supporters of his terrorist intentions.

The TV magazine Panorama Antifeminismus highlighted the third motif that was less noticed : "The frustration of not having a girlfriend also shaped the perpetrator of Halle - and apparently radicalized it."

The compilation of the motifs, their prior publication on the Internet, the English language in order to reach a global audience, and the live broadcast of the fact are similar to the actions taken by right-wing terrorist Brenton Tarrant in the terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch in March 2019. Like Tarrant, B. The car he drove to the act was loaded with weapons and explosives, wore a helmet camera and played music to his killing. Researchers at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) at King's College London discovered B's confessional text and his crime video on October 9th. ICSR founder Peter Neumann gathered from this that "the perpetrator was intensively active in right-wing extremist message forums on the Internet and there, just like the Christchurch assassin, put together an ideology ".

course

Police protocol

According to the minutes of the police in Saxony-Anhalt and the first media reports based on it, the offense proceeded as follows until the perpetrator was arrested:

Time	Perpetrator act	Reactions
11:54	The perpetrator parks his car loaded with four firearms and explosives in a parking lot near the synagogue and starts his live stream with a smartphone camera.
11:59	He attaches the smartphone to a helmet, puts it on, starts the engine and drives to the synagogue.
12: 01-12: 07	He parks the car on the roadside in front of the synagogue, shoots several times at the synagogue's doors, and throws Molotov cocktails or hand grenades at it.
12:03	He shoots a passerby who spoke to him about the loud explosions.	An emergency call 112 from the synagogue reports the attack to the rescue control center.
12:04		A caller reports what has happened to the Halle police station.
12:05		A courier driver asks the perpetrator about the woman lying on the ground and flees when he tries to shoot him.
12:07	He gives up the attack on the synagogue, drives 500 m to Ludwig-Wucherer-Straße and stops at the kebab shop.
~ 12: 10-12: 16	He attacks the snack bar with explosives, shoots passers-by and shoots a guest in the snack bar.
12:11		Police arrive at the synagogue and find the woman who is already dead.
from 12:16	He shoots at police officers, hits a patrol car, is injured in the neck in an exchange of fire, but can get in and drive away.	A patrol car reaches the snack bar and stands across to block the offender's car. After the exchange of fire, the car chases him, but quickly loses sight of him.
12:18	B. drives past the synagogue and the police there again without stopping.	Witnesses do not hear police sirens.
12:19		The police lose sight of the perpetrator again.
12:22	He drives towards Leipzig and throws his smartphone out of the passenger window at the main train station .	The police lose their trail.
13:00	In Wiedersdorf he tries to hijack another car, injures a man and a woman with gunshots and steals a taxi from a car repair shop for the further escape.	A shooting in Wiedersdorf is reported to the police.
~ 13:19		The autobahn police discovered the escape car in oncoming traffic on autobahn 9 towards Munich .
13:25		The police in Wiedersdorf found around four kilograms of explosives in the first escape vehicle.
until 13:35	He drives on the federal highway 91 , causes a traffic accident with a truck without injuries in a construction site and flees on on foot.
13:38		Two district police officers from Zeitz arrest him about 40 km south of Halle near Werschen (Hohenmölsen) .

Videos

Bullet holes in the entrance door on the inner wall immediately in front of the synagogue (2020)

On October 9, 2019 at 11:57 a.m., shortly before he attacked the synagogue, the perpetrator announced the attack in the “Meguca” photo forum: In recent years he had produced weapons with a 3D printer. Anyone who wants to can watch him now in a "live test". To do this, he set a link to his live stream on Twitch .

The video of the live stream lasted almost 36 minutes and shows the course of the crime from the perspective and with the comments of the perpetrator. It helped the investigators to accurately reconstruct the course of the crime. At the beginning, B. looked directly into the camera and introduced himself in English: “Hey, my name is Anon. And I think the Holocaust never happened. " ("My name is Anon. And I think the Holocaust never happened.") "Anon" is the short form of Anonymous used by users who remain anonymous on the 4chan website . So he started with a Holocaust denial and went on: Feminism is the reason for low birth rates in the West that lead to mass immigration : "The root of all these problems is the Jew".

On the drive to the synagogue, he said: Nobody expects the internet SS (“Nobody expects the Internet SS”). At the beginning of the journey he laughed and picked up a rifle: "God, how long am I waiting for it." Upon arrival he cursed over the locked front door: "Fuck! Oh fuck it, maybe they'll come out. ”He put the gun down and detonated an explosive device at another, also locked gate in the cemetery wall. A passer-by spoke to him: “Does it have to be if I go this way? Man, ey. “He shot her several times in the back, she fell. After further unsuccessful attempts to get into the synagogue grounds, he said: "Now let's set it on fire". He pointed the gun at a witness standing next to the killed woman and pulled the trigger. But the gun did not work, so the witness escaped in the car. Then B. shot three times at that side gate, set incendiary devices on fire and threw them over the cemetery wall.

Seven minutes after the attack started, he drove on and announced that he wanted to kill some nuts : “And then I die. Like the loser I am. " ("And then I'll die. Like the failure that I am.") When he saw the takeaway, he said, "Kebab. Let's take. ”There he set off an explosive device and shot a man in the entrance. The latter then hid behind refrigerators and pleaded audibly: “Please, please don't. I have children. ”Other people were hiding further back. B. shot the first man, whose voice fell silent. After about 90 seconds, he left the diner and shot people on the street, who all managed to run away. Then he returned to the diner and killed the seriously injured man behind the refrigerators with several shots.

After about seven minutes at the snack bar, he got back into his car and as he drove off said: "I have definitely proven how worthless improvised weapons are." He noticed a police car that had been on site since 12:15 according to the police report. and said, "Oh, there are police, now I'm dying." He stopped, got out and fought an exchange of fire. According to the perpetrator video, this took place at 12:18 p.m. He was hit in the neck, fell and lay on the ground for about five seconds. Then he got back in and fled. He said: “Sorry, guys. All guns failed, man! Failure! But I have to say, I'm bleeding, I'm shot, somewhere in the neck. And I don't know if I'm dying But I don't think so. It doesn't hurt that much. But that's probably the adrenaline. ”After about 28 minutes he said,“ So guys, that's it. I'm a complete loser. "(" I'm a complete failure. ")

While the stream was the culprit in the background the rap -Song Power Level of Mr. Bond run in which a Master Race ( " master race the neo-Nazi symbol") and Black Sun is mentioned. According to right-wing extremism researcher Bernhard Weidinger, the lyrics of this rapper are “ National Socialist propaganda of the purest quality”, inspired by the ideology of White Supremacy or White Power . In addition, a song by the rapper "Egg White", which pays homage to the assassin Alek Minassian, was shown during the live stream of the crime. He ran over and killed ten people, including eight women, in a minibus in Toronto on April 23, 2018, in order to start a rebellion of the " Incels ". It was assumed that B. also regarded himself as involuntarily celibate , i.e. involuntarily not having sexual intercourse, and that this resulted in a misogynist attitude.

A surveillance camera above the entrance door of the synagogue confirmed the course from a different angle and also showed what happened after B's departure. He wore a combat suit with helmet, vest and military boots as well as several firearms. The minute he shot the passerby, the police received emergency calls describing the perpetrator, his appearance, his murder, his car and its license plate number. After the threatened courier driver drove away, several drivers passed the victim without stopping. Across the street, a postman continued to distribute his mail. Only one man went to the woman who had been shot down, knelt and touched her. Several passers-by were standing by, some of them were on the phone, but no one provided first aid . The first patrol car arrived at 12:11 p.m. A police officer got out, walked around the woman who was shot down, but did not check her condition. No ambulance appeared. Only later was it found that the woman died instantly. At 12:17 p.m., the perpetrator's vehicle passed the synagogue again. The local police let it through, although it was already being searched for and they had previously set up barriers. They didn't put on protective clothing until 12:19 p.m.

According to Twitch , five people saw the live stream directly, around 2200 people later, until the video was blocked after about 30 minutes. According to experts, it had already reached more than 15,600 users of the Telegram messenger service and was also distributed on US and German image boards. After research by BuzzFeed , other Meguca users initially did not believe that B. was planning a terrorist attack. When they saw the live stream, they immediately asked for downloads , made backups, and shared them. Until the ban, thousands posted a link to the video on Twitter . Many followed the events on 4chan ; some expressed their disappointment at the low number of murder victims and insulted those who celebrated B. as heroes and saints despite this “failure”. On Telegram, the video was quickly shared on at least ten neo-Nazi channels and the perpetrator was celebrated. It received such a reach of tens of thousands of viewers. According to experts, despite law enforcement and large providers being banned, it can stay online and reappear on new or undiscovered platforms. According to the Attorney General, B. intended to spread the word by imitating the Christchurch attack in order to instigate imitators to attack himself.

Eyewitnesses

According to witness statements, around 50 visitors had gathered in the synagogue since the morning, including 25 guests from the USA , about 20 parishioners and a family with a small child. They wanted to celebrate Yom Kippur all day long. They heard several explosions in the middle of the Torah reading and saw smoke outside. The cantor saw on the surveillance camera screen that an armed man in riot gear was trying to break into the front door. He immediately shouted: “Everyone out, to the back and then up!” Those present went to the first floor without panic and stayed away from the windows. Some of them barricaded all lower doors with furniture, which were made of wood and not secured. One saw the passer-by, shot by the perpetrator, lying motionless on the floor. Several called the police. This arrived after about 15 minutes.

The community leader Max Privorozki heard and saw that the perpetrator shot at the door and tried to penetrate with explosive devices. With an initial emergency call he reported an armed attack on the synagogue and, according to his own admission, first had to answer a few questions in a time-consuming manner before the emergency call center responded. He observed the murder of a passerby, the perpetrator's further attempted murder and the jamming of his weapon. After fleeing to other rooms, the believers prayed together.

Due to the unclear security situation, visitors were not allowed to leave the synagogue for the time being. After another 50 minutes, the police gave the all-clear for the area around the building. Groups of four people should now leave and testify. In the afternoon everyone was taken to a hospital by bus and looked after by a large team of doctors and nurses. In the evenings they said the closing prayer Neïlah in the hospital cafeteria , stopped the fast and celebrated with food, singing and dancing as planned, but together with the hospital staff. Only then did many realize that they had survived a terrorist attack.

Two students of Jewish theology from Potsdam confirmed that the room was left without panic and that the service continued until the evacuation. They praised the hospital staff as "warm, welcoming, accommodating and appalled at what happened in their city." They thanked God that the door had held up, wanted to continue campaigning for Jewish life in Germany and continue to visit the synagogue in Halle. A rabbi from the USA had visited the synagogue at the invitation of the congregation with her husband and her one-year-old daughter: “We wanted to spread joy, to discuss, and we actually had very nice prayers together, we even danced.” The attack had one started loud bang in the middle of prayer. While waiting for the police for about 20 minutes, nobody knew what was in store for them. Then you just kept praying. They only gradually realized how close they had escaped death, were very sad about the deaths of two people and had already made contact with victims' relatives in order to strengthen them. Many Jews in Germany now have justified fear: "But we insist that we Jews do not give way, that we live and vividly practice our culture and our faith."

The guest Konrad R. saw B., hooded with a grenade and a rifle in his hands, charging towards the kebab shop. When he threw the grenade, it ricocheted off the door frame. Then the perpetrator shot through the window. Konrad R. hid in the toilet, expected death and called his family to say goodbye.

The seller Rifat Tekin testified that the perpetrator entered the takeaway three times: the first time his gun failed. He got a new gun from his car and hit Kevin S. with it. He then killed him completely with three shots from another weapon. Two guests hid in the toilet during the act, and two others jumped outside through a rear window. Tekin had hidden behind the counter and then fled through the back door. His younger brother, also a takeaway seller, returned from shopping. When B. shot him, he took cover behind a car until the police arrived. The resident Florian Lichtner observed the course from the window of the neighboring house. The perpetrator appeared calm and unscrupulous, did not run or panic. The police arrived after ten minutes, in his opinion much too late.

The taxi driver Daniel Waclawczyk and his brother heard a bang and shouts that they could not assign in Kai H.'s car workshop at around 1 p.m. Shortly afterwards B. came to the workshop and asked for a vehicle. According to Waclawczyk, he appeared calmly and introduced himself as a “wanted felon”. When Waclawczyk initially turned him away, he said he had shot two of their neighbors and did not want to do the same with them. He was then given an older taxi and confirmed that it was full. B. wanted to pay and asked for ten minutes before they would call the police. After he drove off, Waclawczyk chased him in another taxi and first located him with the tachograph app on the way to Autobahn 9. When he entered the Autobahn in Wiedemar, he lost his location, but was given the new location by the emergency call center of his car company Weissenfels exit. A little later the police arrested B. on the B91. Because the investigators removed the taxi's navigation device, Waclawczyk was unable to use it for two months. He therefore appeared as a joint plaintiff in the process with a claim for damages.

Victim

Commemoration of the victims of the anti-Semitic attack on the market square (Halle (Saale)) (2019)

40-year-old Jana Lange lived near the synagogue and was on her way home when the assassin shot her. She was a big fan of pop music, often sat in the front at live concerts and collected autographs. Celebrities like Stefan Mross , Ella Endlich and Andrea Berg said they knew them and expressed great dismay at their death.

The 20-year-old Kevin Schwarze from Merseburg was a supporter of the football club Hallescher FC . He had worked on a construction site and spent his lunch break in the nearby kebab shop. His fan club “Liberta Crew Chemie Halle” posted a memorial video for him on its website. The club team appeared in a cup match after the fact with a black ribbon. Friends and acquaintances of both victims set up a donation account for their families and started a petition to erect two memorial plaques at the places where the murders took place.

The attacked near-victims included the courier driver at the synagogue, the vendors and guests in the snack bar and passers-by on the street, whose lives the assassin threatened with hand grenades and gunfire. He shot at at least three passers-by at the snack bar and followed two of them on foot. All escaped unharmed.

While on the run in Halle on Magdeburger Strasse, the perpetrator drove to Abdi Raxmaan Aftax Ibrahim from Somalia by car. This survived. He described the course to the magazine Fakt : The car headed straight for him and, despite his attempt to run away, rammed him on the other side of the street. An eyewitness testified that the vehicle had accelerated and drove directly towards Ibrahim. According to factual research, the acceleration of the car and a vibration can be heard in the perpetrator video. Two other witnesses have not yet been questioned. The Federal Prosecutor General did not classify this incident in the indictment as attempted murder, but as a traffic offense in which the perpetrator "endangered life and limb" of others. Criminal law professor Martin Heger contradicted this : The extremely dangerous and reckless driving style of the perpetrator should be seen as an intent to commit murder. In addition, it can be assumed that he was headed for Ibrahim mainly because of his skin color. Ibrahim's lawyer demands that the witnesses of the incident, which she considers a racist murder attempt, be included in the indictment. During the trial, according to the Mitteldeutscher Zeitung , the defendant admitted when asked that for a white person he “definitely” tried to evade.

Jens and Dagmar Z. were critically injured in their house in Wiedersdorf: The perpetrator shot Jens Z. in the neck when he did not give him the requested car keys. When Dagmar Z. hurried up, he shot her and hit her thigh. Both survived.

In a car workshop in Wiedersdorf, the fugitive assassin threatened master mechanic Kai H. at gunpoint in order to get a taxi in his workshop as a getaway car. H. attributed his survival to his German appearance. B. also threatened the taxi operator Daniel Waclawczyk and his brother who were present when he asked them to take a taxi.

Perpetrator

Stephan Balliet was born in Eisleben in 1992 . The parents divorced in his youth. He passed his Abitur in 2010 at the Martin-Luther-Gymnasium Eisleben . According to the headmaster, he was an "inconspicuous" student. Until 2011 he did his six-month military service with the 401 Panzer Grenadier Battalion in Hagenow . There he was trained on the HK G36 assault rifle and the HK P8 pistol . His Bundeswehr file contained no evidence of right-wing extremist sentiments. At the age of 22 he began studying chemical engineering and chemistry at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg , which he broke off every two semesters. After that he was unemployed and lived with his mother in Benndorf . She is said to have financed his living. According to her, he had experimented with drugs as a 20-year-old, was seriously ill and had to undergo an operation. That changed him. After that, he always locked himself in his room. Sometimes he said things like "The white man doesn't count anymore". He had nothing against Jews, but "against the people who are behind the financial power - who doesn't?" She never noticed prohibited weapons. He cursed everything, for example Greta Thunberg , the weather report, women in politics, women with colored partners. He explained to her that there was no freedom of speech in Germany, which can be seen in the ban on Holocaust denial. He spent the whole day in his room on the computer and didn't even allow her to go in to vacuum.

In 2018 B. applied as a temporary soldier , but withdrew the application in 2019 the day before the selection process. The reasons for this are unknown.

According to investigators, he made all but one of his weapons himself, using a 3D printer, for example. He also used coins as ammunition, some of which he marked with a swastika . He labeled some of the pods with words like "hologa eye". He completed a weapon in March 2019. He bought the smartphone for his live stream in July 2019. He also owned 45 explosive devices, such as pipe bombs and hand grenades. It has not yet been established where he got the money from. There were hardly any entries on his account. According to investigators, he got the only non-home-made weapon in 2015 on the Internet or the Darknet . He built the other weapons in his father's tool shed when he was not at home. He stated that he had only tried the homemade weapons once before. Because of their relatively low penetration power, he was apparently unable to open the door of the synagogue.

B. Adolf Hitler's pamphlet “ Mein Kampf ”, files with Hitler pictures, swastikas and violent videos, including a video of the terrorist attack in Christchurch and videos of gruesome murders and executions, for example by the Islamic State, were stored on hard drives .

B.'s defense attorney Hans-Dieter Weber stated that his client was intelligent and articulate, but socially isolated. With regard to the motive for the crime, he said: "In his view of the world it is just the case that he blames others for his own misery and that is ultimately the trigger for this action - and of course actions that have taken place in the recent past."

On October 10, before the investigating judge, B. admitted the alleged acts and gave the motive an “attitude critical of Jews”. However, he denied being a National Socialist . His defense attorney summarized: “You don't have to be a neo-Nazi to be an anti-Semite.” B. also stated that after the failure of his attack on the synagogue, he shot at others indiscriminately out of “excessive demands”: “I killed people who I did didn't want to meet. "

In his interrogations, B. stated that after graduating from high school, he studied chemistry in Halle, but dropped out after a serious operation, then lived only on donations from his mother for five years and isolated himself in his room at home. He described himself as socially awkward with autistic features. For all of this he blamed “the Jews” who would “drive him out of his life”. Then for years he met anonymously on image boards with like-minded people online. They had encouraged each other in their hatred of Jews and women. So he radicalized himself. The arrival of the refugees in 2015 was a "turning point" for him. He decided to arm himself: if nobody does something, then he has to do it. He decided to launch an attack against Jews because they are the biggest problem for “dissatisfied white men” like him. When asked whether he knew Jews, he replied that he had formed an opinion about them even without knowing them. He had walked past the synagogue in Halle twice to spy on the place and believed that the door would be open on Yom Kippur. His role model is Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch assassin: he has collected and saved everything about him. After the attack, he began to arm himself. Six months later he decided to commit a massacre like Tarrant, but on Jews: He saw this as the source of all evil, the refugee crisis, the emancipation of women and his own failure. Out of frustration over the failure of his plan to break into the synagogue, he switched to "Middle Easterners" in the kebab shop. When he heard the German names of his victims, he regretted killing Germans instead of migrants.

Criminal consequences

Investigations

The police initially suspected several perpetrators and called on the population in Halle and Wiedersdorf / Landsberg to stay at home. The city of Halle spoke of a rampage and convened a staff for "Extraordinary Events". Because the act was classified as dangerous to the state, Attorney General Peter Frank took over the investigation. On October 10, 2019, he saw enough evidence of a right-wing extremist background. B. wanted to achieve a worldwide impact with an act of terror out of xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Four kilos of explosives had been seized in numerous explosive devices in his car . Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer assumed an at least anti-Semitic attack and joined the Federal Public Prosecutor General.

At his request, the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice issued a pre-trial detention order on October 10, 2019 . In an initial interrogation, B. stated that he wanted to murder Jews in a targeted manner and claimed that he had killed and injured other passers-by because he was “overburdened”. He acted all by himself and manufactured his weapons himself from simple, inexpensive means. Once an unknown dialogue partner from the Internet donated 0.1 Bitcoin (around 750 euros at the time of the crime). He had planned the act since spring 2019. The anti-Muslim massacre in Christchurch in March 2019 was "a kind of initial spark" for his murder plans. Then he began with specific preparations and also wrote the first part of his confessional texts.

On October 14, 2019, investigators from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) searched an apartment in Mönchengladbach from which B's “Manifesto” had been uploaded to the Internet shortly after the attack. US authorities had given the BKA the IP addresses of the computer in question. Two residents are suspected of knowing about the terrorist plot. They are being investigated for possible sedition . One of the men denied knowing B. and is said to have handed his PC over to the police on October 12th. By October 16, the federal government submitted a request for legal assistance to the USA for information about American operators of Internet platforms through which the live stream was viewed and distributed. We were looking for three people who were watching the killings on Twitch on the Internet. They had IP addresses in the USA and Switzerland. However, it was unclear whether they actually lived there or used camouflage programs.

On November 13, 2019, the Federal Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Criminal Police Office called on unknown witnesses to share their observations in order to enable “the complete investigation of the crime”.

On April 16, 2020, the Federal Public Prosecutor brought charges against B. He is, among other double murder , attempted murder in 68 cases, attempted armed robbery resulting in death and sedition accused.

According to the investigation files that became known later, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) found B's username and user ID on the Steam gaming platform , but not his contact persons there. The BfV wrote to the BKA that they could not see B's full list of friends via the steamid.uk service , but saw further investigative approaches there. B. was not asked about his activities and contacts on Steam . MDR reporters found further contacts, which were missing in the investigation files , with a self-created extended account on steamid.uk until the beginning of August 2020. The lawyer of one of the co-plaintiffs criticized this lack of clarification and asked for answers to the questions: “Who was he chatting with? Who did he talk to? What kind of ideas have been exchanged? What does he know about these people? ”The extremism researcher Florian Hartleb criticized that despite B's behavior the“ gamification of terror ”was not discussed, among other things because of the lobbying of the game industry.

Incidents during pre-trial detention

B. had been imprisoned in the Hall I correctional facility since his arrest . The initially strict security requirements were relaxed at the beginning of 2020, which, according to Justice Minister Anne-Marie Keding, should have happened without authorization by the prison. For example, contrary to the Ministry's decree, the number of guards was reduced. On May 30th, B. took advantage of the unguarded use of the free-time courtyard in order to get unnoticed over a 3.40 meter high fence into the interior of the institution. After entering another building and searching for an exit there for five minutes, he returned and allowed officers to take him into custody. The institution only informed the Ministry of Justice on June 2, 2020 about the escape attempt. Justice Minister Keding had the incident examined. B's guards were transferred, and he himself was transferred to the Burg correctional facility on June 3, 2020 . The synagogue community in Halle reacted appalled to the attempt to escape and urged that security measures be tightened.

On May 28, 2020, a second Jewish community in Halle received a threatening letter. The police are investigating hate speech against the unknown sender and have expanded the protective measures for the affected community. On May 31st and again on June 2nd, 2020, strangers put a swastika made of cloth handkerchiefs in front of a building belonging to the synagogue community in Halle. Two police officers who had been summoned searched the area with flashlights and reported to the situation center that they had not found anything. However, a surveillance video showed that one of the officers stepped on the handkerchiefs and tried to remove a piece of it stuck to his shoe with the other shoe. He is said to have removed the swastika and not reported. He was transferred to another agency. He is being investigated for possible thwarting of punishments in office and violations of disciplinary law . On June 5, 2020, the police found a 64-year-old man who is said to have taken off the swastikas.

Criminal Trial and Judgment

On July 21, 2020, the Naumburg Higher Regional Court began the main hearing, which was originally intended to last 18 days and last until October 14, 2020. It took place at the Magdeburg Regional Court. Its library was converted into what is currently the largest courtroom in Saxony-Anhalt in order to accommodate the many co-plaintiffs and representatives of the press. The security measures were also increased because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany . Because of his attempt to escape, B. had to wear shackles during the trial .

Judge Ursula Mertens holds the chair. 147 witnesses were named, including 68 police officers, and 43 joint plaintiffs were admitted. On the first day of the trial, Federal Prosecutor Kai Lohse read the indictment: In addition to two murders and nine attempted murders of 68 victims, there are also Holocaust denial, peace-endangering agitation, sedition , predatory extortion , dangerous bodily harm and dangerous interference in road traffic . B.'s defense lawyer is the lawyer Hans-Dieter Weber from Karlsruhe. B. did not want to answer any questions about his family or his studies. He founded his arms manufacture with the influx of migrants to Germany.

When asked why he hadn't looked for new goals after dropping out of his studies, he replied: “I didn't want to do anything more for this society that is replacing me with negroes and Muslims.” The judge then forbade him to publicly insult people. Then B. spread his theory of “population exchange” . "The Jews" organized this and brought "millions of Arabs" into the country: "They behave like the conquerors here." He did not explain how they specifically affected his life. He is at the bottom of society; mass immigration pushed people like him out of society. He bought the rifle as a "weapon of self-defense" against Muslims and blacks. - The judge stated that he had already fallen out of society: "You were sitting in the nursery, looking at the computer, and mom took care of the food." He admitted that he was isolated before 2015 and himself Friends and acquaintances. He did not join political groups "because they were all infiltrated by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution." In 2015 he had decided to arm himself, but had no access to the black market due to a lack of social contacts. He attacked a synagogue instead of a mosque because it was "a difference, symptom or cause to be combated." He admitted the killings and explained: If he had not shot Jana L., all the Internet viewers would have laughed at him and it would have happened said that "one stupid comment is enough to stop a right-wing". "It's not my fault that she insults me," he justified the murder. He fired the second volley at the one lying on the ground “just to be on the safe side”: “She could have got up and disarmed me.” When he pulled the trigger, he insulted her as a “pig”. He classified Kevin S. as a Muslim because of his black hair. He shot him because he “still made noises”: “That shouldn't have happened.” When asked whether he had no pity, he replied: He regretted the act, because he “didn't want to kill white people . That was really not planned. ”When the judge reminded him that Kevin S. was audibly begging for his life, he replied:“ That's why you don't shrink back, that's the way to lose! ”After the failed attack on the synagogue he planned: “Kill as many Muslims and blacks as possible until the police come and then I'll be shot. […] Either win or die. ”Because he only met white people, he failed“ terribly ”. Like the Christchurch assassin, he wanted to reach combat-ready "white men" with his live stream. Because his plan didn't work out, he “made a global fool of himself”.

The perpetrator video was played on July 22, 2020. Several members of the victim left the courtroom; their representatives appealed to the court to deny the perpetrator the desired self-expression. When Federal Prosecutor Kai Lohse asked what he felt about the video, B. laughed and said: “That went pretty wrong.” He emphasized: “Attacking the synagogue was not a mistake. These are my enemies. ”He just learned something about the quality of his weapons. He admitted the two murders and stated that the two people killed were not his "enemies". His only regret was that they were neither Muslim nor foreign.

On July 28, 2020, several lawyers confronted B. with some of his statements in the years before the crime, such as "The fucking Jews are to blame for everything" and "Foreigner pack". His sister testified: "He hates all foreigners - especially Jews". B. justified his statements with alcohol consumption; then he probably had a saying "slipped out". He did not want to answer questions about specific contact persons in his residential area. When asked whether he was a Nazi, he replied with a smile “no comment”. He never discussed political issues with his family. As “typical values ​​of the FRG” his mother conveyed to him “be friendly” and “treat others with respect”; he has evidently developed other values. However, after the crime and her suicide attempt, B's mother had written a letter to her sister that showed her knowledge of B's ​​hatred of Jews and her own anti-Semitism: the state had "let her and her son down". She wanted to bring him back to life, but "they" had "destroyed" him for me. He wanted “only one thing, the truth”. In context, she spoke of the fact that “Jews had a free hand” and ended the letter with scraps of sentences such as “They are lying”, “self-made prophecy”, “the Jews” and a crossed out Star of David . B. tried to explain these statements as the effect of drugs. Many questions about his environment had not been ascertained, such as who he played his online games with, who had given him a book about handguns for his birthday, and how his mother had reacted when he showed her the pamphlet of Brenton Tarrant , the Christchurch mass murderer .

The co-plaintiff Rebecca Blady explained about the course of the trial: The judge's inquiries had made the perpetrator's horrific, deadly hatred of minorities and his love of weapons clear. He knew exactly what he was doing and stood by his convictions. His ideology is life threatening. There should be no place in society for such people. This must face this real problem and work to eliminate it. She had no questions for the perpetrator, but wanted to know what the state government, judicial and police officers needed and planned to get rid of right-wing extremism. She is angry that there are structures that allow anti-Semitic, xenophobic and misogynistic ideologies and corresponding acts to continue. There must be profound changes, especially in state authorities. Right-wing extremists should no longer have a stage and more education, exchange and dialogue are needed so that their ideology disappears for good.

On August 25, 2020, six BKA officials declared the manufacture and effectiveness of B.'s self-made weapons and explosives. Accordingly, he had withdrawn money from his mother's account for tool purchases and built the guns in his father's shed. B. stated that he had tested them all there beforehand. He had stored the finished weapons in the bed drawer in his room, the explosives elsewhere. Shortly before the crime, on October 9, 2019 at 12:55 pm, he had photographed himself in “full gear” in front of a mirror in his father's apartment. At the beginning of the crime, his equipment weighed 29 kilograms and also included a loudspeaker through which he could play music during the crime. In the process, he dropped parts of it. His livestream showed that he had aimed at two other women who were able to run away when his gun jammed. B. testified that he could not remember whether he wanted to kill her. A plastic can filled with an explosive mixture and bullets should throw them in all directions and, according to experts, would have been fatal. B. doubted that the explosive device had been correctly copied. On the other hand, he often defended the effectiveness of his weapons and explosive devices when experts discovered deficiencies in them, and laughed at their statements.

Because B's relatives refused to give evidence, the head of the primary school in Helbra was questioned as a witness on August 26, 2020. B's mother Claudia B. had worked there as a teacher. It was factual and reliable, but relatively closed. She was worried about her son because he was on the Internet a lot, reading the Koran and only talking to her in English. She was happy that he found a hobby, welding. From 2019 she was thin-skinned when she asked about her son and said to a colleague: "I'm afraid that something really bad will happen soon." Then BKA employees testified about B's internet activities. He was active on the platforms vch.moe , Nanochan and with two accounts on Steam . He had downloaded thousands of files from the Internet, such as a drawing of a man standing with a sword on a mountain on corpses in front of a burning Israel flag, and pictures of cartoon characters with swastika arrows. The BKA had not determined whether he himself had published such content online. He used computer simulation to assemble and disassemble weapons in first person shooter games. A BKA employee saw no evidence that his games were preferred by right-wing extremists. However, she had not checked whether one could specifically play "German campaigns" there, and had not queried any scores from Bs in order to determine the campaigns he had played. When asked, she admitted that she hardly knew the function of the sales platform, but that the BKA had commissioned it to evaluate it.

From September 1, 2020, survivors of the attack came to speak as witnesses during the trial. The 30-year-old student of international law Ilona B. had visited the synagogue with a group from Berlin to peacefully celebrate Yom Kippur. After the first "extremely loud bang" outside, the prayer continued. With the second bang, she noticed the cantor's fear and learned that the synagogue was being shot. The smell of smoke spread. The women tried to get to safety on the gallery so as not to have to pass the front door. The police did not explain to them what had happened for a long time after their arrival; they would only have learned this from other reports. The following day, she contacted the mother of the killed Jana L. You can "just not get over the fact that two people are dead because I am not." You could not forgive the perpetrator for killing two bystanders. - The 32-year-old Mollie S. works for a Jewish non-governmental organization that brings people of different religions into contact around the world. Until the attack, she had always felt safe in a synagogue. More than a hundred of her family members were murdered in the Holocaust, only her grandfather survived. Every year on Yom Kippur he blessed her with tears in her eyes. Now she unintentionally belongs to the survivors herself. She was traumatized and unable to work for a while, but now feels strong again. B. had “messed with the wrong person, the wrong family, the wrong people. After today he will not cause me any more agony. It ends here and now. ”Rabbi Jeremy Appelbaum Borovitz said that the encouragement received after the attack confirmed that Jewish life in Germany had a future. - Cantor Roman R. described how he saw B. on the monitor of the surveillance camera. He will never forget the moment when Ms. Jana L. fell over. Then he knew that a terrorist attack was in progress and shouted “duck down” to the parishioners. When the door was barricaded, some wanted to go out and overpower the perpetrator. Not knowing if he was alone, they stayed inside until the police came. In the end, Roman R. spoke directly to the perpetrator: “… I want you to know: There were many people there, and very few were Jews. They were young, old, Halle residents. They sang 'Shalom', 'Peace'. They said we will not leave this place, we will protect you. And then I understood: this is the Germany that I know. I will stay, I will build my family here. And you have to live with what you did for the rest of your life. It didn't work. ”All witnesses emphasized that despite the shock, Jewish life in Germany would continue.

On September 2, 2020, the synagogue's security officer reported the attack. Despite the lack of training, he recognized the danger immediately when he saw B. drive up via the outside camera and get out with a pump gun. He asked the community chairman to call the police and locked all other doors. A student present reported a month-long post-traumatic stress disorder. Overall, however, she had become psychologically stronger through the act, wanted to finish her studies in Germany, live there and continue to visit the synagogue.

On September 9, 2020, the 74-year-old anthropology professor emeritus Bernd H. testified. He was the guest of the Kiezdöner in Halle when B. attacked him. He thought the first shot was a firecracker; even when the window pane shattered, he remained seated. When the perpetrator came in with the rifle in hand, he initially had no connection between the weapon and the shot. Only when another guest shouted "Get out of here, he'll shoot us all otherwise," he fled down the stairs into a storage room. While still on the stairs, he said, “No, please don't shoot” and then heard more shots. As the perpetrator video confirmed, B. had aimed at Bernd H. on the stairs and pulled the trigger twice, but the rifle jammed. H. only found out later. He jumped out of the storage room window onto a garbage can, fell to the floor and bruised the left side of his body. He feared the perpetrator would pursue him and hid with other guests in the area. At around 12:50 p.m. he saw an emergency doctor enter the snack bar and knew from her behavior that a guest was dead. He had been given opium-containing pain medication for six weeks because of the bruise, but did not seek psychological help. His family has taken care of him and subjectively he is now fine. When asked by a lawyer for the co-plaintiffs what he expected from the trial, he replied: Society must recognize "that a deeply despicable crime has taken place here, and indeed from the somewhat sleepy middle of society." It was "difficult to imagine" that B. "with his fantasies, his stubbornness and his racist, xenophobic, deeply inhuman attitude" could develop unnoticed by his environment. Someone with a high school diploma and an ethics teacher as a mother must at least have read Article 20 of the Basic Law and understood "that this presumption to deny someone the right to life because of their beliefs, their origins - socially as well as biologically - makes it impossible. [...] I want the perpetrator to be made clear that he has embarked on a completely absurd development path, at least in our society. That his act has absolutely nothing to do with our legal system and our basic values. We are proud of the achievements of the French Revolution . To the fact that we have granted equality to all people since 1789. No individual can set up criteria according to which one or the other has forfeited his life, that is my firm belief. "

On September 15, 2020, Karsten Lissau testified, the father of the shot Kevin. His son was physically and mentally handicapped, but passed the special school on his own after eight years. Kevin regularly went on vacation with his separated parents and often attended Halleschen FC football games with his father and later a fan club of friends who had protected him . He received an internship in a painting company and began training as a painter there on October 1, 2019. Kevin was very proud to earn the money for his football tickets himself. On the day of his death at 11:45 a.m., he last phoned Kevin and allowed him to go to the kebab shop. After that he tried in vain to reach him by phone up to 30 times. After posting a missing person report on Facebook, an acquaintance sent him the murder video. Then he saw how B. Kevin raved “Face it, man” and then shot dead at close range. He and his mother are still receiving therapeutic treatment to this day; he had been in the psychiatric ward several times and had thought of suicide.

The Attorney General initially only admitted Rifat Tekin as a joint plaintiff from the Tekin brothers because the perpetrator had targeted the police officers, not his brother Ismet. The judge upheld his attorney's complaint. Both brothers testified in September. Ismet Tekin said he could not find words in four languages ​​to describe the attack. But he found a word for the murderer: “Coward.” Then he talked for almost an hour about the deceased, about respect, solidarity, upbringing, responsibility, pain and resignation: he stopped trying to get German citizenship. A German passport is not worth anything for dark-skinned people. At last he spoke directly to the perpetrator: “You have failed all along the line. I live, my brother lives. The result is even more love and solidarity. We won't go away. And you know what? I'm going to be a father, I'm going to have a child. And I'll do my best to raise it here. ”He received applause.

On November 3, 2020, two psychological reports on B. were presented. Lisa John stated: He had always tried to hide weaknesses in character, even denied that he had lied or had forbidden thoughts before, and tried again and again to direct the conversation to his act. In the statement “A person once made me so hot that I could have killed him” on his questionnaire, he replaced the word “man” with “Jew”. He kept laughing out loud as he answered the questions for no apparent reason. Norbert Leygraf confirmed these impressions. He had asked B. three times, but had hardly learned anything personally; B. reacted cautiously or angrily to inquiries about career and family. Leygraf attested that he had a complex personality disorder with autistic features. He suffers from the lack of a partner, a lack of friends and colleagues, is lonely, suspicious, is easy to get offended and has lived "like a child" with his mother again after his serious operation. As an 18-year-old he poisoned himself with plant flowers and was in hospital for two days. When asked by the judge, B. denied that it was a suicide attempt. He spoke to Leygraf mainly about his actions and political views, about his victims and about collateral damage. Only when criticizing his cold feelings and his anti-Semitism did he get emotional and justify himself angry. Leygraf declared B. fully culpable: he was convinced of his conspiracy and persecution ideologies, but not in the form of a pathological delusion. He bears full responsibility for his actions. In addition, his attitude has not changed noticeably; if he had the opportunity, "he would commit similar acts again." Leygraf had published his more than 100-page report in July 2020 before the start of the trial.

On November 4, 2020, B's online activities were covered. According to the expert Karolin Schwarz named by the victim's attorneys, right-wing Internet forums immediately ridiculed him for the failure of his murder plan and his weapons. In addition, there was much speculation about his origin and motives. These included inhuman comments and comments that mocked the victims.

On December 9th, the public prosecutor's office called for the defendant B. to be imprisoned for life with subsequent preventive detention and the particular gravity of the guilt to be determined. The defense admitted that the killing of the passer-by and the snack-goer constituted the criminal offense of murder. The attack on the synagogue, however, should not be considered an attempted murder, since his client had withdrawn from the attempt. The accused himself denied the Holocaust in his closing remarks, whereupon he was withdrawn.

On December 21, 2020, the Naumburg Higher Regional Court imposed a life sentence with subsequent preventive detention for, among other things, double murder, multiple attempted murder and incitement to hatred . In addition, the five judges, chaired by Ursula Mertens, determined the particular gravity of the guilt and made B's early release from prison after 15 years unlikely. In doing so, they followed the maximum penalty demanded by the Federal Prosecutor's Office and accessory prosecution. The judgment can be appealed to the Federal Court of Justice. With 25 trial days, on which 79 witnesses and 15 experts were interviewed, and 23 lawyers who represented 45 survivors and bereaved dependents as joint plaintiffs, it was the largest criminal trial in Saxony-Anhalt to date.

Alleged copycat offender

In October 2020, the Attorney General of North Rhine-Westphalia brought charges against a right-wing extremist youth at the Dortmund Regional Court for attempting to incite murder and for preparing a serious act of violence that was dangerous to the state. He is said to have tried to imitate the attack on the synagogue in Halle and to incite classmates to do so. The prosecution sees reasonable suspicion that in late 2019 he called for the killing of Jews and Muslims. At least one classmate had received this call as a WhatsApp message. The sender is said to have obtained approved fireworks and chemical substances to build explosive devices for an assassination attempt. He is currently housed in a closed youth facility, so the arrest warrant has been suspended.

Social consequences

Criticism of the police

On October 9, 2019, the community leader Max Privorozki criticized that the police had arrived too late after his clear emergency call. In addition, the community has repeatedly requested police protection for Jewish institutions in Saxony-Anhalt, as is customary in large cities. "But we were always told: Everything is wonderful, everything is great, everything is ok."

An eyewitness confirmed that the police always replied to requests for protection for those praying: "There is no acute threat." The security guard is not trained, no visitor is armed, the wooden door is not specially secured, unlike in large cities, the windows were only made of normal glass: "... the perpetrator just had to shoot into it, he would have been inside and caused a bloodbath." It was sheer luck that his hand grenades neither opened the doors nor set the sukkah on fire. “It is a miracle we survived. It was really very, very close. ”After arriving on site, the police acted“ professional, friendly and considerate ”.

Josef Schuster ( Central Council of Jews in Germany ) called the lack of police protection for the Halle synagogue on Yom Kippur "scandalous": "This negligence has now been bitterly avenged." The authorities in Saxony-Anhalt had misjudged the situation. Most German synagogues have a police post during church services. The extremely brutal attack on the highest Jewish holiday was "a deep shock for all Jews in Germany" and "deeply worried and frightened our community". He expressed his condolences to the relatives of the murder victims and the injured.

Representatives of Jewish communities in other federal states also pointed out that their facilities were not protected even on public holidays. Katarina Seidler from the State Association of Israelite Religious Communities in Lower Saxony said: “Something like the one in Halle can happen anywhere every day.” Barbara Traub, board spokeswoman for the Israelite Religious Community in Württemberg , said that such an attack in this country had long been thought possible and they were exchanging ideas therefore constantly talking to the security authorities. Nevertheless, protection must be increased, especially for small communities. Schuster's predecessor in office, Charlotte Knobloch , warned: There should be “no more doubt anywhere in Germany” about the need for police protection for all Jewish institutions.

Saxony-Anhalt's Interior Minister Holger Stahlknecht contradicted Privorozki: According to the risk assessment of the BKA, the synagogue was patrolled daily and regularly. There was no specific indication of an attack. In addition, no crimes related to the synagogue had been committed in the past five years. There was also regular, close contact with the Jewish community. All requests for protection were met. The police had not received a request from the Jewish community for the holiday of Yom Kippur. Whether a patrol car in front of the synagogue stopped the perpetrator from killing people is purely speculative. This would then have continued and most likely would have carried out the attack elsewhere. A police patrol in front of the synagogue would probably not have prevented the murder in the kebab shop.

Josef Schuster disagreed and called Stahlknecht's justification "irritating". The police by no means always complied with the requests of the Halle Jewish community. This statement is "inaccurate and reverses the reality of the past". He doubts Stahlknecht's willingness to "learn from mistakes made and make structural changes to the security authorities".

After the announcement of the surveillance video on February 7, 2020, which documented the police behavior, the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt set up an investigative committee . Among other things, he should investigate possible errors in the police operation and clarify the causes.

In June 2020, Annett Wernicke, head of the responsible police station in Halle, told the investigative committee: The police were not aware that Jews celebrate the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, on October 9th. That is why there was no special protection concept for the synagogue on this day in 2019. The police had no hazard warnings or protection demands from the Jewish community. This was also confirmed by Mario Schwan, head of the Halle Police Inspection, which creates security concepts for religious institutions.

As a result of the criticism, a chief detective in Hanover created a security concept to protect the city's Jewish communities. At the beginning of August 2020 in Dortmund he appeared as a speaker at a demonstration against the corona measures , compared them with the crimes of the Nazi state and called on his police colleagues to refuse to obey orders and to participate in the protests. He was then temporarily suspended from duty. The Jewish associations of Lower Saxony demanded his dismissal and expressed concern that his knowledge of their security measures could fall into the wrong hands. The LKA wanted to review the security concept.

In the trial against B. on September 1 and 2, 2020, several surviving synagogue visitors testified that the police officers who were deployed treated them ruthlessly and without knowledge after their evacuation. They had initially forbidden them to take kosher food with them to the hospital to break the fast in the evening, and only allowed this when a superior reprimanded them with the sentence “They are all Jews”. An official interrupted the closing prayer for Yom Kippur in the hospital in order to immediately take two of the prayers with him for questioning. Only after the intervention of a doctor did he let her finish praying. The student Agata M. reported that the police had pinned notes with numbers on the evacuated Jews; that strongly reminded her of the numbering of concentration camp inmates during the Nazi era, which her grandparents had told her about. “My heart overflows with grief when I see that anti-Semitism still exists here. […] Today it is necessary to say: stop, that's enough! ”30-year-old Christina F. said that the officer questioning her did not tell her his name and did not want to tell her what had happened. He had behaved "rude, snotty and annoyed" as if she were a burden for him and gave her no feeling of security. Unlike the perpetrator, the police had no knowledge of Judaism and Yom Kippur. That contributed significantly to the fact that she no longer had any trust in the German state authorities and did not want to return to Germany: “Because I am afraid that we will again not be heard or understood. I see that in politicians and in society who ignore the fact that this country has a massive problem with anti-Semitism ”. Both witnesses received applause for their words.

politics

Flowers in front of the Freiburg synagogue to commemorate the attack in Halle (2019)

At a commemorative event to mark the 30th anniversary of the peaceful revolution in Leipzig , Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke of shocking news. Such an attack on a synagogue in Germany was no longer conceivable up to this point in time. He called for solidarity with the Jewish fellow citizens. Even Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her condolences to the families of the victims. The anti-Semitism commissioners of the federal and state governments jointly emphasized that it must now be a matter of “standing together as a society, resolutely opposing destructive tendencies, and showing that Judaism belongs to us, that was an attack on us all”.

Civil society

The umbrella organization of Islamic communities in Saxony-Anhalt, the Turkish Islamic Association Ditib and the Coordination Council of Muslims in Germany (KRM) condemned the attack. The Ditib chairman Kazim Türkmen reminded that Muslims in Germany are also increasingly exposed to threats and hostility and called for "a common sign [...] against any form of misanthropy ". Theories of single perpetrators could no longer distract from the fact that "the social climate is increasingly being poisoned by right-wing ideas and has long since exceeded threatening dimensions, especially on the Internet".

On the evening of October 9, 2019, hundreds of citizens gathered in front of the synagogue and expressed their solidarity with the victims. On October 11, 2019, thousands came to a large memorial concert in Halle “for an open and peaceful coexistence and a message against anti-Semitism”. On October 9, 2019, hundreds of people spontaneously demonstrated solidarity with the Jewish community in Halle in several cities. On October 11, at the beginning of the Sabbath , more than 1,000 people gathered to form a human chain in front of the synagogue in Halle. There were vigils, human chains, rallies and memorial services in many other cities as well.

Criticism of the AfD

The day after the attack, the Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Joachim Herrmann, called for an intensified discussion of anti-Semitism. In addition to tracking down violent criminals in good time, this also includes naming the “intellectual arsonists”. To these he counted "some representatives of the AfD ". Björn Höcke in particular is about “spreading more anti-Semitism in our country again.” Karin Prien (CDU), Karl Lauterbach (SPD), Rolf Mützenich (SPD) and others expressed similar criticism . Michael Roth (SPD) said on October 11, 2019 that the AfD was "the political arm of right-wing terrorism in the Bundestag", and referred to various racist statements by AfD representatives.

AfD representatives such as Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland rejected the criticism as "unfounded defamation" and instrumentalization. They called the act a "horrific" or "monstrous crime" committed by a lone perpetrator. The Berlin AfD chairman Georg Pazderski said that an “escalation” like the one in Halle was foreseeable because the “fatal policies” of the other parties “tolerate and sometimes even court antisemites”. He named the annual Islamist al-Quds day in Berlin and a "knife man" who attacked the New Synagogue (Berlin) . What was meant was a mentally ill Syrian who unsuccessfully tried to penetrate the building with a knife at the beginning of October 2019 and was admitted to a closed psychiatric ward. The discriminatory term “knife men” was established in right-wing populism as a synonym for violent immigrants or generally for refugees in order to anchor the equation “refugee = knife man” in the mass consciousness.

The AfD MP Stephan Brandner distributed a tweet on October 11, 2019 , which called the murder victims “Germans who like to listen to folk music” or “bio-Germans” and asked rhetorically: “Why do politicians hang around with candles in mosques and synagogues? “In addition, Brandner commented on a picture of the Jewish publicist Michel Friedman , who had commented on the attack, with contemptuous hashtags (“ #PaoloPinkel ”,“ #Koksnase ”,“ #Zwangsfunk ”). As a result, the German Lawyers Association (DAV), the German Association of Women Lawyers (djb) and representatives of all other parliamentary groups demanded that Brandner should give up his chairmanship in the legal committee of the German Bundestag or be excluded.

On 11/12 In October 2019, the Saxon AfD member of the state parliament, Roland Ulbrich , a specialist lawyer for criminal law, claimed on his Facebook page: “There has not even been an attempt to kill the visitors to the service in the synagogue.” He asked what was “worse”. was, "a damaged synagogue door or two killed Germans", and described the attack attempt as "damage to property". The statement is a "relaxation exercise" for legal argument in procedural law. When asked, he stated that the perpetrator only had to be punished for his act, his attitude was "completely irrelevant". Thousands of comments condemned Ulbrich's view as anti-Semitic, because he differentiated between Jews and Germans, denied the murder intent and motives of the perpetrator. The MP Volker Beck (Bündnis '90 / Grüne) said, referring to the previous statements from the AfD: “The allegedly pro-Jewish AfD cannot contain its contempt for Jews and their anti-Semitic companionship. [...] Roland Ulbrich is working on the anti-Semitic climate that threatens the life and freedom of Jews in Germany. ”Levi Salomon from the Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism found Ulbrich's trivialization of anti-Semitic terror to damage property not surprising, since he was already with the first "Merkel-must-go" demonstrations had asked to sing all three stanzas of the national anthem.

Several AfD local associations denied B's stated motives. The AfD Nuremberg claimed, contrary to the facts, that he denied “any legal political motive” and that he had also “not radicalized himself in terms of legal policy”. This is "wishful thinking" from investigators, politicians and the media. Counter-evidence was reinterpreted in terms of conspiracy theory: "B. Purchased anonymously? ”The AfD Salzgitter asked where the“ police car that otherwise guards the synagogue in Halle around the clock, seven days a week ”was. It could only have been “withdrawn” on command “from the very top”. This local association had cheered in September 2017 that the “AfD had successfully stormed the Bundestag” and that “the next phase in the war against this most disgusting system that ever existed on German soil was about to begin”. In contrast, the political scientist Daniel Köhler, an internationally recognized expert on right-wing terrorism, recalled the long-known connections between such public agitation and acts of violence.

The right-wing extremist parties NPD and Der III. Weg distanced themselves from the attack because, according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), they feared that state agencies could otherwise tighten their action against them. "The III. Weg ”claimed that politics and the media were instrumentalizing the“ act of a single perpetrator ”carried out“ haphazardly and amateurishly ”to act against“ national aspirations ”.

media

Ferdinand Otto ( Die Zeit ) criticized Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer's use of the word “alarm signal” as “quite a trivialization”. He also asked why Frank-Walter Steinmeier considered the attack “unimaginable”. German Jews could "imagine such a scenario". They would be reminded of such an opportunity every day "when they have to pass armed police officers and security doors to go to school or to worship".

Hanning Voigts ( Frankfurter Rundschau ) also objected to this choice of words by politicians and pointed out that the attacker, who was dubbed with the reassuring-sounding word “individual perpetrator”, was “obviously part of the völkisch discourse ” that was not “in times of societal shift to the right more only cultivated in the classic neo-Nazi scene ”, but“ also carried into the talk shows by some AfD politicians ”. Regarding the phrase "fight off the beginnings", which is often used after such events, Voigts stated that as long as Germany indulged in the illusion in 2019 that "it is only necessary to fight off any beginnings", the fight against racism and anti-Semitism has "not even begun ".

According to Christian Bangel (Die Zeit), the murderer from Halle used their words, arguments and stories despite all subsequent distancing of the right. Bangel calls in particular the right Narrative of " gender delusional" and the " Great Exchange " and the AFD-argument structures that would offer the starting points for classical anti-Semitic thought patterns. He criticized further the claim (even within bourgeois milieu), anti-Semitism was a problem of immigration as an attempt "to the Jews hate ethnicize and keep him so far away from the white German population."

Gregor Peter Schmitz ( Augsburger Allgemeine ) found that the sentence “Never again!”, Which had become a raison d'etat after the Holocaust, had to remain valid for every form of anti-Semitism, not because other countries were looking at us, but “because otherwise we Germans would no longer look at them Eyes can see ".

According to Klaus Hillenbrand ( Die Tageszeitung ), it has been shown "that hatred of Jews is not a derailment that one can overlook, but that murder is inherent in it". Just as important as the work of the security authorities is it to "fight the beginnings of anti-Jewish thinking, be it in school or in the company".

As Matthias Drobinski ( Süddeutsche Zeitung ) noted, Jews in Germany are being attacked by right-wing anti-Semites and Islamists . Both scenes draw “their ideology and their murderous know-how from a worldwide network of like-minded people”. At the same time, an increasing part of the population wanted to put an end to “the German guilt cult and the supposedly omnipresent Jewish influence in the world”. The lack of a police station in front of the synagogue in Halle was the "breach of the state promise to the Jewish communities: We will protect you". Jewish life “that could only take place in a niche would be a disgrace for the country”.

Markus Decker ( Leipziger Volkszeitung ) called it a mistake to suspect anti-Semitism only on the Islamist side, because it was "still where it always was: on the far right". Anyone who did not understand the seriousness of the situation after the events in Halle could not be helped, instead one had to "suspect secret sympathies".

Hajo Schumacher ( Berliner Morgenpost ) alluded to the RAF in the 1970s and said that right-wing terrorists should be “as sure of the devilish benevolence of those who stayed in parliaments as that of the ideologues who want to stress the country so much, even out of sheer fear the last decency disappears. When officers hoard weapons, when insane people create death lists, when ' fly shit ' is ridiculed, when swastika thugs roam inner cities, when politics, the army and authorities are infiltrated, areas of land are Aryanised , and instructions for building bombs are distributed, then autumn is again in Germany " .

The Israeli daily Haaretz classified these acts as “a global, racist white supremacy ideology”. The perpetrators are "native white men full of hostility and frustration, incited not only by right-wing extremist websites and literature, but also by alleged mainstream politicians, especially President Donald Trump ." La Repubblica (Italy) spoke of the "grave threat to our democracies" which, unlike Islamist terrorism, "is the fruit of something that lives in the depths of European society and that quickly kills the antibodies that developed after the carnage of World War II ".

Mathias Döpfner ( Die Welt and Executive Board of Axel Springer SE ) referred to other anti-Semitic incidents, allegedly committed by Arabs. In this context, he also placed an identity deception of the football professional Bakery Jatta suspected by the Bild newspaper . He also complained about "a vital xenophobia, the handling of which currently acts like a fire accelerator", and saw the main cause of this as a "rule of law very dubious refugee policy", "an understaffed police", "a judiciary overburdened with criminal immigrants" and a "political and media elite. ”He went on to include environmental movements that“ should have held a vigil in front of a synagogue. ”He concluded by saying that he“ does not want to live in a country where fellow citizens because of their skin color or because they are Jews The Hamburger Abendblatt criticized the connection established by Döpfner between right-wing terrorism and suspected identity deception as “confused thoughts”.

According to Richard C. Schneider (Die Zeit), more and more “shamelessness” is spreading, not only “among right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis, not only among racist leftists who like to use anti-Semitic clichés in their hatred of Israel and do not notice that they don't understand anything are better than their Nazi ancestors ”. Anti-Semitism was "long back in the middle of society", where it was never gone. According to Schneider, "educated citizens, intellectuals, teachers [...] believe and speak the same nonsense as the assassin", only "linguistically somewhat more elected and not with the intention of going out the next day and murdering Jews in a synagogue or elsewhere". The biggest problem is that " Auschwitz " has been made the "benchmark for hatred of Jews", and everything that is supposedly "less bad" has "been able to walk down below for decades, so to speak". With mendaciousness such as the term “Judeo-Christian culture”, which does not mean that Jews now belong, but rather that Islam does not belong to Germany, Jews would also be made clear that they did not really belong, but a minority against one others being played out. This also felt confirmed to the “fringes” because they knew that such ideas also existed in the middle of society.

Johannes Boie (Die Welt) reported that Max Privorozki, the chairman of the Halle Jewish Community, received massive anti-Semitic insults on Facebook and Twitter after an interview with the SZ in November 2019 in which he admitted that he was thinking about emigrating; Privorotsky also received malicious comments following a report by the MDR on these insults. From these (and other) incidents, Boie concluded that Europe was “sick” and that there was no improvement in sight.

science

Political scientist Matthias Quent emphasized that the perpetrator was part of a large virtual network. The fact that he filmed the crime directly, broadcast it on the Internet and spoke in fragmentary English, shows the importance of this right-wing extremist "international of people haters" for him. Especially because of the right-wing extremist subculture on the Internet, it is difficult to avoid such acts. According to Quent, the concept of the " lone wolf " played an essential role for the perpetrator , which American racists of the White Supremacy like Tom Metzger have been promoting since the 1990s.

The historian and anti-Semitism researcher Uffa Jensen sees a lack of education in schools and radicalization on the Internet as two fundamental problems in Germany, which ultimately led to an act like the one in Halle. Anti-Semitism is often equated with National Socialism , "while there is very little talk about anti-Semitism and racism and prejudices themselves". Much more needs to be clarified about these and the potential for violence they contain.

The political scientist Gideon Botsch pointed out that the increasing threat to Jews was an everyday experience, and was “amazed at how little our warnings are taken seriously and are incorporated into security concepts”.

State follow-up

On October 10, 2019, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff , Holger Stahlknecht and police spokesman for Saxony-Anhalt promised the representatives of the Halle Jewish community in a joint press conference that they would work to prevent this from happening again, and announced protective measures at. By mid-November 2019, the police in almost all federal states increased the protection and presence of Jewish institutions. Hessen also increased the budget for it. Local discussions with Jewish communities, for example on structural and technical security issues, were intensified. Josef Schuster called these steps "overdue".

Before the 2020 anniversary, Seehofer announced that he would reorganize the BKA and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, improve cooperation between the federal and state security authorities, and tighten gun law. A bill to combat hatred on the Internet was drawn up and an agreement was reached with the Central Council of Jews to improve the construction and security of Jewish facilities nationwide. Criticism found that most of these announced measures had not yet been implemented a year later and that Jewish institutions in many places continued to be exposed to unprotected attacks. Petra Sitte (Die Linke), a member of the Bundestag , called for greater support for civil society projects and initiatives that raise awareness of neo-Nazism and right-wing agitation.

On October 2, 2020, Saxony-Anhalt's Interior Minister Holger Stahlknecht complained that police officers had to spend more time protecting Jewish buildings and therefore might be absent elsewhere or come too late. Central Council President Josef Schuster said: Stahlknecht insinuated that "Jews are to blame if the police can no longer adequately deal with the concerns of the rest of the population". By portraying Jews as privileged and playing them off against other population groups, he promotes anti-Semitism. It is therefore questionable whether he is still suitable as a minister after the attack and the latest anti-Semitic attacks. The anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein also criticized Stahlknecht: To portray Jews as privileged, who would be protected at the public's expense, stirs up anti-Semitism. The fact that Jewish communities need increased security is not due to them, but to the threat against them. The state must guarantee their basic right to unrestricted practice of religion and bear 100 percent of the security costs. Klein welcomed the funds from the federal and state governments for structural protective measures and the newly introduced obligation to report online hate postings to the BKA. The police had to know the Jewish calendar nationwide and special occasions to be protected. A courageous civil society that opposes anti-Semitism and takes Jewish life much more for granted is the best protection. There is more to be done for that. Even the fact that Jews are again discussing their future life in Germany as a result of continued anti-Semitic attacks is “more than an alarm signal”.

The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover had after the attack transitional guard services and installation pay full bullet-proof windows for Jewish communities. Her spokeswoman Petra Bahr emphasized on the 2020 anniversary that this aid was purely symbolic politics and did not relieve politics from its responsibility. It was not until almost a year later that the state of Lower Saxony raised the already very small funds for Jewish communities. These are only a compensation for their valuable cultural and social work, not a gift. They are much lower compared to the budgets of the major churches. State authorities should no longer treat the protection of Jews, their institutions and worship services as a private problem for Jewish communities. It is wrong to let them pay for their security measures themselves: “It is not your problem that you have to barricade yourself! That concerns us all. ”The state must guarantee this security in such a way that the Jewish communities do not have to feel like they are in a ghetto.

The Kiez kebab turned into a kind of memorial of FC Halle for the two murder victims. At the reopening, Halle's Lord Mayor promised the survivors and new owners Ismet and Rıfat Tekin help with business problems. They lost about a quarter of their sales. But the city administration did not grant any financial aid, only offered help with dealing with authorities and arranging donations. The mobile victim counseling criticized that the city is pulling out of responsibility. Assassins like B. are concerned with the destruction of livelihoods; Self-employed migrants in particular are particularly threatened here. A solidarity group made up of activists and local residents printed flyers for the snack bar. The Jewish Student Union collected more than 29,000 euros in donations up to the anniversary. So far, the federal government has not provided any aid for economic damage after attacks. The Federal Ministry of Justice reformed victim assistance at the beginning of September 2020, so that businesses acting as terrorist scenes can now apply for financial help. The Tekin brothers want to use these funds to convert the snack bar into Halle's first Turkish breakfast salon. They want to keep the Kiez kebab in the long term, to show that people in Halle are not intimidated and divided by racists and right-wing terrorists.

Processing and commemoration

Entrance door on the inner wall to the synagogue hall with bullet holes (2020)

The life-saving entrance door of the synagogue was built in 2010 based on the historical model and financed by the Jewish Agency after German state authorities had rejected the financial aid requested by the community. After the attack, the lawyer Ronen Steinke pointed out that small Jewish communities in particular are run by volunteers who are overwhelmed with such requests. The state knows that there is a danger, but it "lets this danger stand with sight".

The synagogue's video system, through which visitors could see the perpetrator and his plans and therefore escape, had only been installed a few years earlier. Days after the attack, the Halle Jewish community decided to keep the door as a memorial and to replace it with an even more solid security door.

The Dessau master carpenter Thomas Thiele built the synagogue door in 2010 that withstood the terrorist attack. He received the order for the new synagogue door and completed it by July 27, 2020. It looks exactly the same as the previous door, but consists of 160 kilograms of solid oak with embedded security technology. It is the most stable door he has ever built, stressed Thiele. It was used the following day.

Lidia Edel, a student from Halle who is active for the community, has been leading an art project to integrate the old synagogue door into a memorial since February 2020. It is intended to strengthen the community, also to include the children of the community and to be a permanent reminder of the deed.

On November 9, 2019, the anniversary of the November pogroms in 1938 , parish chairman Max Privorozki referred to references between the Reichspogromnacht and the attack. In Germany, anti-Semitism is becoming “more and more blatant at great speed”. It is no longer embarrassing to openly show yourself as an anti-Semite. It is sad that Jews have to spend everyday life behind bars and protective walls. Without these measures it is uncertain whether the Jewish community still has a future here. For a few years now, he has no longer felt at home in his city and slowly started to look for better places. Josef Schuster advised Jews in Germany to stay cool and not to hide despite the difficult situation. "Politicians should have opposed right-wing extremist tendencies earlier and more effectively at all levels."

After a mourning period of forty days, which is usual in Islam, the kebab shop reopened on November 15, 2019. The day before, the previous operator Izzet Cagac had given the snack to the two employees who were on duty there when the attack occurred. He wanted to help them deal with what was happening. According to him, between 1,700 and 2,000 people visited the snack bar to reopen.

Halle's Lord Mayor Bernd Wiegand announced at the end of 2019 that the exhibition area on Jewish life in the Halle City Museum would be expanded to include the attack.

Several commemorations took place in Halle on October 9, 2020, the first anniversary of the attack. At 12:01 pm (when the first shot fell on the synagogue door) public life came to a standstill; all the church bells rang. Central Council President Josef Schuster spoke of a turning point the evening before and recalled ongoing attacks on Jews in Germany that had not been prevented despite the presence of the police. Nevertheless, the vast majority of them see their future there. This leap of faith obliges the Germans to dispel fear of contact and prejudice against Jews. Visits to memorial sites should become compulsory for trainee police officers and judicial staff. The security authorities would have to systematically pursue anti-Semitic and right-wing agitation on the internet. In this way it could be shown that the perpetrator was wrong in attempting to destroy Jewish life in Halle and elsewhere.

Memorial plaque in the wall of the Jewish cemetery (2020)

At the two crime scenes, in the synagogue wall and in front of the Kiez kebab, memorial plaques for the two victims were unveiled. They carry the identical text: "In memory of Jana Lange and Kevin Schwarze and all other victims of the anti-Semitic terrorist attack on Yom Kippur 5780 - October 9, 2019 on the Halle synagogue and a snack." the old synagogue door had been integrated. In the Erdgas-Sportpark , the venue of the HFC, a memorial plaque was unveiled at Kevin Schwarze's regular place with the inscription: "Kevin S. * 06/04/1999 † 10/09/2019".

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas declared on the anniversary that right-wing extremist terror was the “greatest threat to our country”: there is currently a right-wing extremist crime every 24 minutes in Germany. "These are not isolated cases, but rather the bitter right-wing radical reality in Germany". Each individual must counter this so that all people regardless of their origin, religion and orientation can live here safely.

On the anniversary of 2020, 17 co-plaintiffs called for the focus to shift away from the perpetrator to his ideology of white supremacy. Sexism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, homophobia and xenophobia are merged with various conspiracy myths. B. is embedded in a global network of followers of this ideology, whose online terrorist communities have made physical meetings superfluous. This ideology has fueled many attacks by young, hateful white men at home and abroad who allegedly acted alone, but actually shared their intentions and deeds online with like-minded people and sought their recognition and imitation. B. sought to stir up the same attention and violence as his predecessors in Christchurch, Poway and Oslo, which inspired him. Their groups of victims (Muslims, people of color, liberals, women, Jews, immigrants) are also identical. The aim of this hatred is "to eliminate all those who do not correspond to the ideals of the perpetrator of a white, male-dominated society". It is therefore just as important as the condemnation of individual perpetrators to deal with the cause of this violence: that global network of hatred in anonymous forums of "white supremacy". These urgently need regulation. The survivors are obliged to urge state representatives to do so. Everyday racism in language and police behavior must also be investigated, for example, calling Muslims Turks, the NSU murders for years as "kebab murders", suspecting foreign mafia gangs and not pursuing the murderers of Oury Jalloh . The discriminatory tendencies of the political and social institutions, dominated by white male privileges, would not be recognized. If after the judgment against B. online radicalization remains possible and the perpetrator ideology of “white supremacy” is not recognized as a global threat, but rather tolerated, then full justice will be missed.

Help for the victims

The victims' relatives, the injured and eyewitnesses to the attack received therapeutic and financial help from several sources. The Federal Ministry of Justice paid out a total of 355,000 euros in emergency aid to 59 victims by January 2020 and promised hardship payments. The mobile counseling service for victims of right-wing violence advised those affected with discussions and provided psychological, official and financial help. In two months since the act, the victim funds of the association "Mit einer eV" and the association of counseling centers for victims of right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic violence received a total of more than 8,000 euros in donations, which are used for recreation and travel costs for the victims' relatives as well as some fixed costs for the snack were. This had to make up for an enormous loss of income until it reopened. Further donations are being collected for legal and legal costs. The White Ring received 31,000 euros in donations, for example from auctions by the professional sports clubs in Halle.

Additional information

See also

• List of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in German-speaking countries after 1945
• Right-wing extremism on the Internet
• Group S.

literature

• Andreas Speit , Jean-Philipp Baeck (eds.): Right first-person shooters: From virtual agitation to livestream assassination. Christoph Links, Berlin 2020, ISBN 3-86284-471-4 , pp. 23-25 , pp. 38f., 67f. and more often
• Karolin Schwarz: Hate Warriors: The New Global Right-Wing Extremism. Herder, Freiburg 2020, ISBN 3-451-82001-3 , p. 129
• Andre Oboler, William Allington, Patrick Scolyer-Gray: Hate and Violent Extremism from an Online Sub-Culture: The Yom Kippur Terrorist Attack in Halle, Germany. Online Hate Prevention Institute, December 2019, ISBN 978-0-648-74260-9 .
• Florian Hartleb: The manifestos of right-wing terrorist individual perpetrators. A comparative analysis. In: Criminology. Independent journal for criminal science and practice , 72 (2020) 5, pp. 313-318.

Web links

• Democ - Center for Democratic Contradiction V .: Hall process: short reports from all negotiation days
• Hall after the attack : Exhibition, blog, podcast, information from Radio Corax , Hall against Right, Protest Working Group

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} Philipp Bovermann, Joachim Käppner: A city takes cover. Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), October 9, 2019
2. ↑ ^{a b} Roland Sieber: Halle attack - staged like a first-person shooter. DRR, October 2019
3. ^ Patrick Gensing: Attack in Halle - Documents of Hate. Tagesschau.de, October 9, 2019
4. ^ Robert Bongen, Katharina Schiele: Feminism as enemy image. Tagesschau.de , October 30, 2019; Robert Bongen, Katharina Schiele: Right-wing terrorists: hatred of women. Panorama, October 31, 2019
5. ↑ Notice in Halle: Stahlknecht describes the exact process. MDR, October 10, 2019; Philipp Seibt, Jean-Pierre Ziegler: Assassination attempt in Halle: Hundred minutes of terror. Spiegel Online, October 10, 2019; Dispute over lack of police presence: Interior Minister justifies police use before and during the Halle attack. MDR, October 14, 2019
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Jörg Diehl, Maik Baumgärtner, Roman Lehberger, Sven Röbel, Philipp Seibt, Timo Lehmann, Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt: The confused world of the assassin. Spiegel Online, October 14, 2019
7. ↑ ^{a b c} The alleged perpetrator video: Minutes of the attack in Halle. dpa / Zeit Online, October 11, 2019
8. ^ Gunnar Hinck: Attack on the synagogue in Halle: Terrorist drove past the police. taz, October 15, 2019
9. ↑ Sammy Khami: The soundtrack of right-wing terror - "Nazi propaganda of the purest quality". DLF, October 25, 2019
10. ^ Andreas Speit, Jean-Philipp Baeck : rechte egoshooter , Berlin 2020, p. 53
11. ↑ Halle: Stephan Balliet is said to have killed two people - we know that about the neo-Nazi. The West , October 10, 2019
12. ^ ^{A b} Florian Flade, Georg Mascolo: Attack in Halle: New video raises questions about police operations. Tagesschau.de, February 7, 2020
13. ↑ Florian Flade, Georg Mascolo, Ronen Steinke: Attack on the synagogue: Video raises questions about the police operation in Halle. SZ, February 7, 2020
14. ↑ ^{a b} Konstantin Kumpfmüller: How the Halle video spread. Tagesschau.de, October 10, 2019
15. ↑ Ryan Broderick: Far-Right Halle Shooter Allegedly Posted A Manifesto With Xbox-Like “Achievements” To Anime Message Board Before Livestreaming Attack. BuzzFeed, October 11, 2019
16. ↑ Till Haase, Michael Gessat: Live stream on Twitch: Five people watched live when the synagogue was attacked. DLF, October 10, 2019
17. ↑ Alexej Hock: Jewish community in Halle asked the police for protection - in vain. Welt Online, October 10, 2019
18. ↑ ^{a b} Christina Feist: Eyewitness report from the attack in Halle: "I locked the door". Profil.at, October 12, 2019
19. ↑ Anna-Sophie Schneider, Roman Lehberger, Timo Lehmann, Dominik Peters: Eyewitness from the synagogue in Halle: "The perpetrator shot the door several times". dpa / Spiegel Online, October 9, 2019
20. ^ Johanna Rüdiger: The day after the attack - Hall between grief and anger. Braunschweiger Zeitung, October 10, 2019 (interview video with Max Privorozki, seconds 0.39 - 0.58)
21. ↑ Kai Biermann , Luisa Hommerich, Yassin Musharbash , Karsten Polke-Majewski : Assassin murdered out of hatred of Jews. Zeit Online , October 9, 2019
22. ^ Katharina Wiechers: Jewish institutions still under police protection. Potsdam Latest News (PNN), October 15, 2019
23. ↑ Thorsten Schmitz: Then we heard a loud bang from outside. SZ, October 11, 2019
24. ^ Maria Kurth: Attack in Halle: "The perpetrator was in the shop three times". Volksstimme, October 10, 2019; Attack in Halle: "He was still shouting, please don't shoot!" Spiegel Online, October 10, 2019 (for a fee)
25. ↑ ^{a b} Simon Köppl: Face to face with the Halle assassin: This taxi driver was chasing Stephan B. MDR, June 21, 2020
26. ^ ^{A b c} Friedel Taube: Attack in Halle: Who were the victims? Deutsche Welle, October 19, 2019
27. ↑ ^{a b} Federal Prosecutor General: GBA: Communication on the status of the investigations in the preliminary proceedings due to the attack in Halle (Saale) on October 9, 2019. October 10, 2019
28. ↑ Terrorist attack in Halle: What is known about the victims. MDR, October 10, 2019
29. ↑ FAKT research: Halle assassin tried to kill more people. MDR, July 21, 2020
30. ↑ Hagen Eichler: Mosque was also in the sights. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, July 23, 2020, p. 1.
31. ↑ Ibrahim Naber, Annelie Naumann: "If I didn't look so German, I might be dead now". Welt Online, October 12, 2019
32. ^ ^{A b} Georg Mascolo: Halle assassin confesses motives for the inexplicable. Tagesschau.de, March 29, 2020
33. ↑ ^{a b} Martin Lutz: The assassin owned 45 explosive devices - and does not want to be "a Nazi". Welt Online, October 16, 2019
34. ↑ Assassination attempt in Halle: Stephan B. got a weapon on the Internet. Tagesschau.de, October 16, 2019
35. ^ Jörg Diehl, Sven Röbel: Halle assassin had Hitler's "Mein Kampf" on the PC. Spiegel Online, November 8, 2019
36. ↑ ^{a b c} Annette Ramelsberger: Right-wing terrorism: the Halle assassin makes a comprehensive confession. ; Attack in Halle: Among men. SZ, March 29, 2020 (registration required)
37. ↑ Tobias Roth: Karlsruhe public defender describes Stephan B. as an intelligent and articulate man. Badische Latest News , October 11, 2019
38. ↑ Lizzie Dearden: Stephan Balliet: The 'loser' neo-Nazi suspected of deadly attack on German synagogue. The Independent , October 10, 2019
39. ^ "Amoklage" after shots in Halle - two fatalities. Tagesschau.de, October 9, 2019
40. ↑ Vanessa Steinmetz: Statement by the Federal Public Prosecutor - the perpetrator from Halle had four kilos of explosives in the car. dpa / Spiegel Online, October 10, 2019
41. ↑ Helene Bubrowski, Reinhard Bingener: The perpetrator was shot by the police. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), October 9, 2019
42. ^ Sven Röbel: Halle assassin was financially supported by an unknown person. Spiegel Online, October 11, 2019
43. ↑ ^{a b} Terrorist attack in Halle: Investigators are looking for viewers of the live stream. Spiegel Online, October 18, 2019
44. ↑ Florian Flade: attack in Halle - apartment in Mönchengladbach searched. SZ, October 16, 2019
45. ↑ Investigators are looking for more eyewitnesses to the Halle attack. afp / Welt Online, November 13, 2019
46. ↑ Halle assassin charged. dpa / Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 17, 2020; Charges were brought against Stephan B. for the attack on October 9, 2019 in Halle. Generalbundesanwalt.de, April 21, 2020
47. ^ Marie-Kristin Landes: Attack in Halle: What exactly is in the indictment. MDR, April 26, 2020
48. ^ Christian Bergmann, Florian Barth: Halle assassination attempt: Stephan B.'s gamer contacts were not sufficiently determined. MDR, August 2, 2020
49. ^ After attempting to escape in Halle JVA: Suspected Halle assassin was relocated. MDR, June 3, 2020
50. ↑ Stephan B .: Jewish community reacts in horror to the attacker's attempt to escape. Time online, June 4, 2020
51. ^ Halle: Jewish community receives threatening letter. Spiegel online, May 29, 2020
52. ↑ Christopher Piltz: Swastikas in front of the Jewish community - investigations against police officers. Spiegel online, June 5, 2020
53. ↑ Swastika in Halle: Suspicion of obstruction of punishment against police officers. Jewish General, June 5, 2020
54. ↑ Halle: suspect determined. Jewish General, June 7, 2020
55. ^ Marie-Kristin Landes: Halle stop: All important information about the process. MDR, July 20, 2020
56. ↑ Marie-Kristin Landes: security concept for trial against Halle assassins is available. MDR, July 3, 2020
57. ^ Before the start of the trial in Halle: 147 witnesses and 43 joint plaintiffs admitted. Spiegel Online, July 20, 2020
58. ↑ ^{a b c} Beate Lakotta: Process start in Magdeburg: "I didn't want to kill any whites". Spiegel Online, July 21, 2020
59. ↑ Hannes Heine: Assassin von Halle insults blacks and Muslims. Tagesspiegel, July 21, 2020
60. ↑ ^{a b} Hannes Heine: "If I hadn't done that, everyone would have laughed at me". Tagesspiegel, July 21, 2020
61. ↑ Romy Richter: Video of the anti-Semitic attack in Halle shown in the courtroom. Migazin, July 23, 2020
62. ↑ Video at Halle trial - grief and anger in the courtroom. SZ, July 22, 2020
63. ↑ Oliver Das Gupta: The Halle assassin's hatred of Jews was known to the environment. SZ, July 28, 2020
64. ^ Thyra Veyder-Malberg: Rebecca Blady: "I am angry". Jewish General, July 30, 2020
65. ↑ Sixth day in the trial of the Halle assassination attempt: Stephan B. defends “his” weapons and laughs in court. RTL, August 25, 2020
66. ^ Antonie Rietzschel: Halle assassin Stephan B .: Difficult to grasp. SZ, August 26, 2020
67. ↑ Beate Lakotta: Trial after the Halle assassination attempt: "After today he will not cause me any more agony". Spiegel Online, September 1, 2020
68. ↑ Recognized the danger: Synagogue security guard describes Halle assassination attempt. RND / epd / dpa, September 2, 2020
69. ↑ Beate Lakotta: Survivor of the Halle assassination attempt: "A deeply despicable crime has taken place here". Spiegel Online, September 9, 2020
70. ↑ Beate Lakotta: Father of a victim in the Halle trial: “Tell us something about your son”. Spiegel Online, September 15, 2020
71. ↑ ^{a b} Martin Nejezchleba: stop of Hall: "We will not go away." Time, October 8, 2020
72. ^ Antonie Rietzschel: Halle assassin: lonely, suspicious, easy to offend. SZ, November 3, 2020
73. ↑ Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt: Report on the assassin von Halle: fantasies of an extreme anti-Semite. Spiegel Online, July 17, 2020
74. ^ Attack in Halle: Nineteenth day of the trial: ridicule in the net for Halle assassins. MDR, November 4, 2020
75. ^ Defender in the Halle trial demands "a fair judgment . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 9, 2020, accessed on December 9, 2020.
76. ↑ Hannes Heine: Defense lawyers plead for "reduced culpability" hrsg = Der Tagesspiegel. December 9, 2020, accessed December 9, 2020 . 
77. ^ Court sentenced Halle assassin to life imprisonment. Spiegel Online, December 21, 2020
78. ↑ Attack on synagogue: maximum penalty for Halle assassins. Tagesschau.de, December 21, 2020
79. ↑ Frank Jansen: Charges against 15-year-old schoolchildren: young people planned attacks on Muslims and Jews. Tagesspiegel, November 4, 2020
80. ^ After the attack on the synagogue in Halle - Central Council of Jews: Serious allegations against the police. MDR, October 10, 2019
81. ↑ Philipp Peyman Engel: [ https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/unsere-woche/ein-wunder-dass-wir-ueberlebt-haben "A miracle that we survived". ] Jüdische Allgemeine (JA), October 10, 2019
82. ^ Attack on the synagogue in Halle: Schuster calls the lack of police protection "scandalous". SZ, October 10, 2019
83. ↑ Halle attack: Stahlknecht is supposed to comment on the work of the police. MDR, October 13, 2019; "Irritating and uncritical". YES, October 13, 2019
84. ↑ Florian Flade, Georg Mascolo: Attack in Halle: New video raises questions. BR, February 7, 2020; Investigation committee into the attack in Halle: focus on police operations. MDR, February 25, 2020
85. ↑ Attack on synagogue in Halle: Police were not aware of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. dpa / Spiegel online, June 10, 2020
86. ↑ Lower Saxony: Police officer at Corona demo was responsible for the security of Jewish communities. Jewish General, August 13, 2020
87. ^ Halle trial: Jewish witnesses complain about police officers. Berliner Zeitung, September 2, 2020
88. ↑ Matthias Jauch: Steinmeier calls for solidarity with Jewish fellow citizens. Der Tagesspiegel (TS), October 9, 2019
89. ↑ Merkel expresses her condolences to the victims of Halle. Zeit Online, October 9, 2019
90. ↑ Sven Röbel: Attack in Halle: Investigators find notes with the inscription "Niete" on the assassin. Spiegel Online, October 11, 2019
91. ↑ Islamic communities condemn attacks as acts of terrorism. dpa / Welt Online, October 10, 2019
92. ^ Alliance against hatred: Muslims condemn attack on synagogue in Halle. Migazin, October 11, 2019
93. ↑ Ditib: Attack on synagogue is attack on our coexistence. epd, October 10, 2019
94. ↑ Great wave of solidarity with Jewish communities: numerous vigils and demonstrations nationwide. epd, October 11, 2019
95. ↑ Herrmann: Spiritual arsonists are also part of the AfD. Bayerischer Rundfunk, October 10, 2019
96. ↑ Vanessa Steinmetz: Herrmann describes "some representatives of the AfD" as intellectual arsonists. Spiegel Online, October 10, 2019
97. ↑ Ulf Poschardt: Michael Roth: "In the Bundestag sits the political arm of right-wing terrorism - the AfD". Welt Online, October 11, 2019
98. ^ Union and SPD see after the attack in Halle complicity in AfD. TS, October 10, 2019
99. ^ Public prosecutor Feuerberg about the incident in front of the synagogue. Der Tagesspiegel , October 8, 2019; Stefan Locke, Markus Wehner: Is the AfD complicit in the attack? FAZ, October 10, 2019
100. ↑ Alexander Häusler: Antimuslimischer Populismus: Right Racism in a new guise. Aktion Courage eV, Berlin 2019, ISBN 3-933247-73-X
101. ^ Outrage over tweets from AfD politician Brandner. Welt Online, October 12, 2019
102. ↑ Julius Betschka: AFD politician called attack on synagogue "criminal damage". TS, October 15, 2019;
     Netzpolitik.org: Verfassungsschutz report on AfD , January 28, 2019 (paragraph on Roland Ulbrich in Part 3.1.3 “Rule of Law” and fn. 361).
103. ↑ Katja Thorwarth: AfD does not want to know anything about the right-wing extremist motive of the assassin. FRI, October 17, 2019
104. ↑ Reactions of the right-wing extremist scene to the attack in Halle. Verfassungsschutz.de (undated).
105. ↑ Ferdinand Otto: Politicians struggle for words, the AfD with decency. Zeit Online, October 10, 2019
106. ↑ Hanning Voigts: Right Terror: The German Blindness. FRI, October 10, 2019
107. ^ Christian Bangel: Attack in Halle: He is not alone. Zeit Online, October 10, 2019
108. ^ Gregor Peter Schmitz: Synagogue shots in Halle: Such pictures must never be allowed again. Augsburger Allgemeine, October 10, 2019
109. ^ Klaus Hillenbrand: Murderous Jew hatred. taz, October 9, 2019
110. ↑ Matthias Drobinski: The breach of a state promise. SZ, October 10, 2019
111. ↑ Markus Decker: Fatal shots in Halle: An attack on Jewish life. LVZ, October 9, 2019
112. ^ Hajo Schumacher: Right-wing terrorism: It's autumn again in Germany. Berliner Morgenpost, October 11, 2019
113. ↑ The perpetrators are white men full of hostility and frustration. TS, October 10, 2019
114. ↑ Mathias Döpfner: Never again "never again"! Welt Online, October 10, 2019
115. ↑ Christoph Rybarczyk, Alexander Josefowicz, Stefan Walther: Springer boss connects stop in Halle with Jatta. Hamburger Abendblatt, October 11, 2019
116. ↑ Richard C. Schneider: "These ridiculous vigils in front of synagogues". Zeit Online, October 17, 2019
117. ↑ Johannes Boie: Europe is sick. Improvement is not in sight. World, November 16, 2019
118. ↑ Peter Maxwill: The single perpetrator who was not alone. Spiegel Online, October 10, 2019
119. ↑ Uffa Jensen: "There is virulent, violent anti-Semitism". DLF, October 10, 2019
120. ↑ Carsten Holm: Anti-Semitism researchers not surprised by the attack in Halle. PNN, October 11, 2019
121. ^ After the attack in Halle-Saale - press conference. MDR, October 10, 2019
122. ^ After the attack: The gesture of Halle. dpa / epd / FR, November 17, 2019
123. ↑ Alex Rühle, Ronen Steinke: Jews in Germany: Definitely not. SZ, September 28, 2020
124. ↑ ^{a b} Angela Tesch: One year after the attack on the synagogue: Halle commemorates the victims. Tagesschau.de, October 9, 2020.
125. ↑ Markus Decker: Interior Minister of Saxony-Anhalt: Central Council of Jews suggests replacement of Stahlknecht. RND, October 5, 2020
126. ↑ Konrad Litschko: Felix Klein one year after the attack in Halle: “Fears are back”. taz, October 9, 2020
127. ↑ Ronen Steinke: One year after the attack in Halle: “The police don't do everything”. SZ, October 9, 2020
128. ↑ Martin Machowecz: "A good door". Zeit-Magazin No. 22, May 20, 2020, pp. 14–20, here p. 16 f.
129. ↑ Hanning Voigts: Ronen Steinke: "I am in favor of not giving a millimeter". FRI, July 3, 2020
130. ↑ Marek Majewsky: The synagogue door of the Jewish community to be of remembrance a place. YES, October 17, 2019.
131. ↑ Petra Buch: Portrait: Final handles on the new synagogue door. Jewish General, July 27, 2020
132. ^ After the attack in Halle: Student Lidia Edel from Halle designed the synagogue door. MDR, February 3, 2020.
133. ↑ Halle Jewish Community: "To openly show yourself as an anti-Semite is no longer embarrassing." Zeit Online, November 9, 2019.
134. ↑ Maria Marquart: Döner shop should belong to employees in the future. Spiegel Online, November 16, 2019.
135. ↑ Oliver Leiste: After the attack: How the kebab shop owner wants to strengthen cooperation in Halle. MDR, October 25, 2019.
136. ↑ Hundreds of people visit the reopened “Kiez-Döner” in Halle. dpa / Zeit Online, November 18, 2019.
137. ↑ Marek Majewsky: When I look into your eyes, there is nobody there. YES, December 29, 2019.
138. ↑ Jonas Nayda, Max Hunger, Denny Kleindienst, Yvonne Müller: Protocol of the anniversary: ​​Haseloff with a very personal speech - Halle sends a message. MZ, October 9, 2020 (chargeable)
139. ↑ Jonas Nayda, Max Hunger, Denny Kleindienst, Yvonne Müller: Protocol of the anniversary: ​​Haseloff with a very personal speech - Halle sends a message. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , October 10, 2020
140. ↑ Halle commemorates the victims of the attack: warning from Maas. SZ, October 9, 2020
141. ^ Yaffa Fogel: One year after the attack in Halle: The network of hate. Spiegel Online, October 9, 2020
142. ^ Right-wing extremist terror: This is the help those affected by the terrorist attack in Halle get. MDR, January 23, 2020.

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 35 ″  N , 11 ° 58 ′ 49 ″  E