Aryan Circle Germany

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As Aryan Circle Germany (ACG; " Aryan circles Germany") refers to a fellowship of 12 to 50 German right-wing extremists . The neo-Nazi Bernd Tödter founded it in Bad Segeberg in July 2019 . The name comes from the American right-wing extremist network Aryan Circle ; however, the German group is not an offshoot of it.

Emergence

Tödter (* 1974), an extremely violent neo-Nazi who has been active since 1990 and has had several criminal records, co-founded the “Kameradschaft Nordmark” in Bad Segeberg in the 1990s. In 2009 during a two-year prison sentence in the Hünfeld correctional facility , he founded the racist prisoner aid organization Aryan Defense Jail Crew . In 2011 and 2012 he tried to win the right-wing terrorist Beate Zschäpe for this organization. At the time, Zschäpe was in custody as a member of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) terrorist group . In 2015, Tödter claimed contacts with the NSU in the NSU trial , but later revoked this.

In 2016, Tödter abused several people who did not want to join or leave his neo-Nazi group Sturm 18 from Kassel , which was banned in 2015 . For this he received another prison sentence. In early 2017 he tried to gather like-minded right-wing extremists in prison and organize them. In a letter to the public prosecutor's office, he accused a fellow prisoner who did not want to join his group that this prisoner had denounced and threatened him, Tödter, as a child molester. In a further letter dated September 2017, Tödter reported the fellow prisoners for theft, fraud, embezzlement and breach of trust, and had two fellow prisoners confirm his claims. These turned out to be false statements in a further trial, for which Tödter's prison was extended. After his release from prison, Tödter moved back to his home town of Bad Segeberg and from July 2019 tried to set up the Aryan Circle Germany group from there.

In mid-July 2019, Tödter solicited support for the new comradeship from former members of "Storm 18" on Facebook . In an e-mail he wrote: “Hello comrade, as you will surely have noticed, the Sturm 18 eV was declared forbidden by the Hessian Minister of the Interior on October 27, 2015. However, it is clear to everyone that the people behind it are not broken because of this. (...) Like a phoenix from the ashes we have risen and are now driving our (un) being under the banner of the internationally active Aryan Circle. "If you are interested, you should send him an SMS or email, then you will become a" contact group " added and later invited to "song recitals in Kassel". To do this, he gave his mobile number and e-mail address. He chose the Wotans knot as the group's logo and had it printed on T-shirts for public appearances. According to the police, around 15 like-minded people were quickly found in Bad Segeberg who stood out because of their T-shirts in the cityscape and committed crimes.

The English-language name Aryan Circle refers to the right-wing extremist organization of the same name in the USA, which has committed many acts of violence. However, the anti-fascist research portal EXIF ​​- Research & Analysis considers it very unlikely that Tödter from the USA was authorized to set up a German branch . Exif assumes that Tödter uses the well-known name to benefit from the established reputation of the US gang, to feign an organizational potential of his group, and to sharpen his violent image. This is also indicated by the symbol of the Wotanknot, which differs greatly from the logo of the US group. In October 2019, Exif drew attention to Tödter's start-up, his methods, his dangerousness and his networking in the right-wing extremist scene.

Websites, structure, members

After research by Exif , Tödter created the closed Facebook group Aryan Circle Germany on August 3, 2019 , which has 35 active members. According to her, there are sub-groups in Hildesheim , Dortmund , Kassel and Wuppertal in addition to Bad Segeberg . The Facebook group is administered or moderated by the neo-Nazis Sascha Reuse (Kassel), Jan Borkowiak ( Bönen ) and Tobias Finger ( Lübeck ). Reuse belonged with Tödter to the board of "Sturm 18" and committed violence against people for Tödter. Tobias Finger was active with Tödter in the "Friends of National Activists" in Hesse.

ACG also has a blog and the websites aryan-circle.de and aryan-circle.com . At the beginning of September 2019, Tödter set up the Internet forum for ACG with a post office box in Bad Segeberg as an imprint, administrates and advertises it. It has a very similar structure to the former forum for «Sturm 18» members: The general area is divided into the topics "Culture & History", "Law & Law", "Race & Religion", "Criminal Offenses (Foreigners)" and "Offenses (from the left)". The "Law & Law" section offers members relevant legal texts on " sedition ", grievous bodily harm and criminal association. The "Prisoner Care" area covers the subjects of prisons and prisoner lists. Many forum posts are newspaper articles about Tödter. Some glorify National Socialism and leaders of the Nazi regime. An " Anti-Antifa " area offers publicly accessible information about left-wing groups with names and addresses of Schleswig-Holstein anti-fascists, including eight people from Bad Segeberg. The data comes from a hacked customer database of the online shop "Impact-Mailorder" in 2015. They were widely distributed by right-wing extremists and published online as "Antifa lists", but consist of very different and often outdated customer data.

The forum is used for nationwide networking and is divided into the user groups "AC" for Aryan Circle and "NSBS" for "National Socialists Bad Segeberg". As the “AC Federal Board”, Tödter looks after the AC members in the forum, and a group leader with the pseudonym “Mr. Hunter” heads the NSBS group. However, the members are partly the same. In October 2019, 48 neo-Nazis from different federal states registered in the forum. They include long-time acquaintances of Tödter such as Jessica Slawik (Cuxhaven), Annika Hübner (Aschersleben), Björn Krüger (Wuppertal), Thorsten Kupzok (Kassel; a former member of “Sturm 18”). Walter Dickel (username “Druide”) from Kassel, who testified extensively in 2012 against Tödter, his “Sturm 18” group and their possible connections to the NSU, is also part of the AC forum.

The NSBS group is a subgroup of ACG. Its leader is the neo-Nazi Marcel Steenbuck (username "Matthias Kleinheisterkamp") from Bornhöved . He is listed in the forum as the "AC Section Leader". Steenbuck belonged to the right-wing extremist group "Nordic Division", which in June 2019 first changed its name to "Division Nord" and then to "AC Nord". According to photographs, this subgroup also includes Michel Kordtsin, Thomas Krüger (a close friend of the neo-Nazi Peter Borchert ), Cherina Möller, Alexander and Maren Neufeld, Pascal Ulack and Steenbuck's partner Marie-Christin Plambeck, also from Bornhöved. Plambeck took part in several NPD events with Steenbuck in 2019 and promoted ACG on the Internet. She studied in Kiel and was registered as "writer & press" for handball at the Trappenkamp gymnastics club. According to the Kieler Nachrichten , she led and trained a children's sports group as a pedagogy student in this gymnastics club.

activities

Since the summer of 2019, Tödter and his comrades have been sticking stickers with the words “Aryan Circle” or “NSBS” for “National Socialists Bad Segeberg” on lampposts and migrants' houses, especially in the southern part of the town and downtown Bad Segeberg. They spoke to children and young people on their way to school through the Südstadtpark in Bad Segeberg every day and threatened residents and parents who observed the events. They tried to recruit the young people for the struggle to "preserve the white race". As a result, Tödter was banned from entering the vocational training center in Bad Segeberg. On September 27, 2019, members of the group took photos of participants in a climate strike by the Fridays for Future movement and threatened the person who reported the strike at her doorstep. They besieged the house of the person who reported the climate strike in Nazi clothing for weeks until the police drove them away. The presence of the neo-Nazis meant that the weekly climate protests were temporarily suspended, migrants avoided Südstadtpark and only allowed their children to go to school in groups or to pick them up.

According to research by Exif , the sub-group “Division North” appeared in public for the first time on August 3, 2019 in Neumünster to use a funeral service for a murdered child for racist propaganda. On August 17, 2019, at least six ACG members held a memorial to the Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess in the cemetery of honor in Bad Segeberg . At the beginning of September 2019, six ACG members around Marcel Steenbuck attacked a left-wing project in Lübeck, forced entry, destroyed posters and a banner, threatened “We'll be back” and then fled to the apartment of two local NPD members. On September 29, 2019, six ACG members, including Tödter and Daniel Schmidt from Sülfeld, with their own T-shirts took part in the march “German Michel, finally wake up” in Hamburg. On October 17, 2019, Marcel Steenbuck, Marie-Christin Plambeck and Daniel Schmidt attacked a group of committed people in Sülfeld who were removing ACG stickers from the city center. They threatened with "house calls", used pepper spray and hit two people in the face. So far only activities of ACG in the Schleswig-Holstein area have become known.

Reactions

In mid-October, 23-year-old Daniel Schmidt from the ACG in Sülfeld attacked and injured two people who wanted to remove stickers with the words “Aryan Circle”. Around 800 people demonstrated against the attack and the group under the motto "Sülfeld is colorful - we are more".

In November 2019, the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of Education informed the school principals in Bad Segeberg how they should behave if Tödter or other neo-Nazis entered the school premises. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution said it was monitoring Tödter's activities.

The initiative “Segeberg stays colorful” was formed against the ACG. She removes the group's stickers every two to three weeks, clarifies about neo-Nazism and right-wing extremist ideology in society, counteracts attempts at intimidation and occupies public spaces, around January 18, 2020 with a festival of lights in Südstadtpark.

On March 3, 2020, the Flensburg public prosecutor had the apartments of twelve ACG members in Brandenburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein searched. According to the police, the twelve people between the ages of 19 and 57 had shown themselves in public with the symbol and lettering of the Aryan Circle Germany and were photographed with it. Some had previously committed racist crimes and violations of the gun law. The public prosecutor's office accuses them of forming a criminal organization to commit racially motivated bodily harm and damage to property as well as offenses under the Weapons Act. During the searches, storage media, narcotics and objects that fall under the Weapons Act, including knives but not sharp weapons, were found. The investigators suspect the group of continuing the "Sturm18", which was banned in 2015, because Tödter's invitation email from July 2019 had suggested it. Further evidence is sought to back up the allegations. So far there have been no indications of a planned attack. None of the accused were arrested. According to information from the NDR, about six supporters of the ACG insulted the investigators during the search in Bad Segeberg.

In addition, the raids are intended to help clarify the role of the individual suspects in the group, especially Bernd Tödter, who is classified as the ringleader. According to Schleswig-Holstein's Interior Minister Hans-Joachim Grote , ACG has been observed since the attacks in Sülfeld. He had seen himself that Tödter wanted to terrify the whole place. That this continues must be prevented by all legal means.

During the raid, officials from the riot police confiscated a cell phone, data carrier and other evidence of a suspect in Göttingen and put them in a box. They then left this in front of the suspect's apartment. When they noticed this at the station, they returned, but the box was already gone. They only found the cell phone. Media reports spoke of an "embarrassing glitch". The Flensburg Public Prosecutor Stephanie Gropp said that she did not know any details of the incident, but that no evidence had disappeared.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kai Budler: blow against "Aryan Circle". The Right Edge, Issue 182 - January / February 2020
  2. ^ A b Andreas Speit: Neo-Nazi mobilized in Bad Segeberg: Militant Circle. taz, October 11, 2019
  3. ↑ David Schraven, Nathan Niedermeier: Did the head of the "Aryan Circle Germany" have a connection to NSU terrorists? Corrective, March 4, 2020
  4. ^ A b c Daniel Göbel: Kassel neo-Nazi Bernd T. builds militant circles - renewed hearing at the regional court. Giessener Allgemeine, November 6, 2019
  5. ^ A b Frank Jansen: Raid on "Aryan Circle Germany": Investigations against known right-wing extremists. Tagesspiegel, March 3, 2020
  6. ↑ a b c Black man Bernd Tödter founds the «Aryan Circle» comradeship. Exif, October 26, 2019
  7. ↑ Gerrit Sponholz: 'Aryan Circle': Follower led a children's sports group. Kiel News, March 5, 2020
  8. ^ A b c Sabrina Winter: Everyday life with neo-Nazis in Bad Segeberg: Poisoned mood. taz, January 17, 2020
  9. ↑ Julian Feldmann: Sülfeld: A place defends itself against neo-Nazis. NDR, January 28, 2020; Mira Nagar: Sülfeld near Bad Segeberg: How a village opposes a neo-Nazi network. SHZ, December 4, 2019 (chargeable)
  10. ^ A b "Aryan Circle Germany": searches of suspected right-wing extremists. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), March 3, 2020
  11. ^ Raid against neo-Nazis in Schleswig-Holstein. NDR, March 3, 2020
  12. ↑ "Aryan Circle" -Razzia: Göttingen policemen forgot box of evidence. Spiegel, March 6, 2020
  13. ↑ Breakdown during raid: officials leave evidence lying around. NDR, March 6, 2020