East Brigade
The East Brigade was a right-wing extremist group from Johanngeorgenstadt (Ore Mountains). Members of the group had contacts with the Zwickau terrorist cell National Socialist Underground (NSU). Four members are said to have supported the terrorists.
development
In a garage yard on Steigerstrasse not far from Elias-Stolln in Johanngeorgenstadt, a clique of young people with right-wing extremist sentiments met from 2000. Many of the "Brigade Ost" worked in West Germany, but their center of life was in the East. At times the group had between 100 and 150 members, but they were loosely organized. Several arrested because of alleged NSU support were also members of the "White Brotherhood of the Erzgebirge".
Individuals had connections in the camaraderie scene. Thomas Gerlach was also a member of the "Brigade East" and a leading player in the "Free Network". Together with Ralf Wohlleben , who was accused in the NSU trial , he organized the right-wing rock festival “ Festival of the Nations ”. In clandestine Internet forums, Gerlach used the password “struck-mandy”, the name of another accused in the NSU proceedings, which Beate Zschäpe used as an alias.
Connections to the NSU
At least four “Brigade” members were identified as alleged supporters of the NSU. The twin brothers Maik and André Eminger were active in the "Brigade East". André Eminger supported the NSU trio, among other things, by procuring camouflage identities and rental vehicles for the NSU crimes. In the NSU camper van that burned out on November 4, 2011, the police found two train cards in the names of André Eminger and his wife, which were used by Beate Zschäpe and Uwe Böhnhardt . In the NSU house set on fire by Zschäpe, the police found handouts from André Eminger's media company. Therefore, during the 2012 investigation, the Federal Prosecutor accused the Eminger couple of having worked on the NSU's confessional DVD. André Eminger also supported the NSU by renting mobile homes. The investigators concluded that additional assistance was provided by evaluating cell phone data. In the course of the process, Zschäpe confirmed that the Eminger family and their two small children had visited them, Zschäpe, almost every week in their apartment in Zwickau. When a water pipe burst in the house in 2006 and Zschäpe was supposed to testify to the police, according to witness statements, André Eminger helped Zschäpe by giving her his wife Susann's ID card and posing as Zschäpe's husband to the police. After the death of the two terrorists and after Zschäpe set fire to the apartment on November 4, 2011, she called André Eminger. Zschäpe told the court that he had given her clothes to his wife and brought her to the train station. The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office had André Eminger arrested in Brandenburg by GSG 9 on November 24, 2011 , he was charged with supporting the NSU terrorist organization and sentenced to two and a half years in prison on July 11, 2018. The federal prosecutor's office had also accepted aiding and abetting in the attempted murder because Eminger had rented the vehicle that Mundlos and Böhnhardt used in 2001 for the trip to Cologne to drop a bomb , and demanded twelve years in prison, which the court did not consider to be sufficiently proven. His wife Susann is listed as a suspect in the NSU proceedings at the Federal Prosecutor's Office.
Another member of the brigade, Matthias Dienelt, had rented camouflage apartments in Zwickau for the NSU in May 2001 and March 2008. He was a member of the “White Brotherhood of the Erzgebirge”, was arrested on December 12, 2011 and is a suspect in the NSU proceedings.
Another active member of the "Brigade East", Mandy Struck, made her ID available to Beate Zschäpe. In February 1998 she is said to have billeted the members of the NSU with her boyfriend at the time in Chemnitz. According to its own statements, the Saxon constitution protection had observed Böhnhardt and Zschäpe at the end of September 2000 in front of the former Chemnitz residence of the Brigade East member. Beate Zschäpe used the woman's name as the cover identity. The woman denies having known about it, but is also listed as a suspect in the NSU proceedings by the federal prosecutor's office.
Individual evidence
- ↑ René Heilig: No garage passage. In: Neues Deutschland , November 25, 2011.
- ↑ Julia Jüttner: "Brigade Ost": The after-work Nazis from the garage yard. In: Spiegel Online , November 23, 2011.
- ↑ Dirk Banse, Uwe Müller: The Ore Mountains and Terror. In: Welt Online , December 12, 2011.
- ^ Patrick Gensing: NSU trial: Andre E. - Prototype of a neo-Nazi. In: Tagesschau.de , May 5, 2013.
- ↑ BT-Drs. 18/12950 , June 23, 2017, p. 621.
- ↑ Arrest warrant against other alleged supporters of the neo-Nazi terror cell. In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 3, 2016; BT-Drs. 18/12950 , June 23, 2017, p. 620.
- ^ Andreas Förster: Neo-Nazi group "Brigade Ost": The garage on the outskirts of the city. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , November 24, 2011.
- ↑ BT-Drs. 18/12950 , June 23, 2017, p. 620.