Eckart Bräuniger

Eckart Bräuniger at an NPD demonstration on April 1, 2006 in Berlin-Pankow

Eckart Bräuniger (* 1971 in Berlin ) is a German right-wing extremist from Berlin-Friedrichshain . Bräuniger is a former member of the Freedom German Workers' Party (FAP). From November 2005 to June 2008 he was state chairman of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) in Berlin, and from November 2011 he was a member of the national board of the NPD. In January 2013 he left the NPD.

Party career at FAP and NPD

Eckart Bräuniger became active with the Freedom German Workers' Party (FAP) in the early 1990s and, according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, also worked as a so-called “Croatian mercenary” on the Croatian side in the Yugoslavian war. Together with other people from the surrounding area, he participated in an attack on alleged political opponents in the Prenzlauer Berg district in 1992 , in which a victim lost 20 percent of his eyesight. After the FAP was banned in 1995, he found a new political home in the Berlin NPD. He worked as the NPD organization leader and counted himself to the National Socialist wing. In 1999 he became chairman of the NPD district association Pankow-Weißensee and in 2004 district association chairman in the Treptow-Köpenick district. He appeared several times as a registrant and speaker at NPD rallies and information stands in Berlin and Brandenburg. In the 2005 Bundestag election , Bräuniger ran both on the NPD state list and as a direct candidate in the Neukölln constituency, where he received 2.0 percent of the first votes. In the election campaign his xenophobic positions were revealed in the propagation of a national socialism .

In November 2005 Bräuniger was elected as the new Berlin NPD state chairman. The Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution interpreted his election as a clear sign that the NPD and the neo-Nazi scene of the Free Comradeships are moving closer together. Bräuniger is considered a violent leadership activist with good contacts to the comradeship and music scene as well as to the DVU. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is therefore assuming a "growing threat" from the NPD. Interior Senator Ehrhart Körting (SPD) commented on Bräuniger's election: "The NPD is moving to the right." The Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution reported that "the change at the top [...] is accompanied by a more neo-Nazi and actionist orientation of the state association".

In the Berlin election in 2006 he ran as a direct candidate for the Berlin House of Representatives in the constituency of Treptow-Köpenick 2 and received 6.2 percent of the first vote . Via the district list of the NPD, Bräuniger moved into the district council assembly (BVV) Treptow-Köpenick as a district councilor and was there from October 2006 to May 31, 2009 a member of the three-person NPD parliamentary group. By moving to Brandenburg, he left there.

In November 2011, Bräuniger was elected member of the NPD federal executive committee at the national party conference of the NPD . At the end of November 2011, he was appointed managing director of the NPD press organ, German Voice , and dismissed as the same in October 2012.

In January 2013, Bräuniger left the NPD.

Further activities in the right-wing extremist spectrum

In addition to the party activities, Bräuniger is also active in the right-wing terrorist and subcultural areas. During the Croatian War he served as a mercenary for a while . He has close ties to the right-wing rock scene. In September 2002 he was arrested together with other well-known neo-Nazi cadres on the 20th birthday of the rocker group Vandalen - Ariogermanische Kampfgemeinschaft in Berlin-Marzahn, and one year later in Köpenick together with members of the criminal group Landser . As a further raid at the birthday party of the neo-Nazi organization Hammerskins shows, Bräuniger is also in close contact with them, as well as with the banned neo-Nazi network Blood and Honor . In June 2004 Bräuniger organized a concert for the NPD with the band Spreegeschwader and Michael Regener , the former singer of the band Landser, in Berlin-Lichtenberg. On the Internet, he reportedly announced: “This is u. a. the kind of party work we do in the Reich capital. "

In April 2004, Bräuniger was arrested by a special task force of the police during military sports exercises in a Brandenburg forest . Seven other right-wing extremists were also arrested, including two vandals and several people from the spectrum of the Kameradschaft Vereinte Nationalisten Nordost , who trained the Kameradschaft Nordland there with weapons as a terrorist cell .

In 2008, a report by the RBB about Bräuninger's request to name a Charlottenburger Strasse after the SA storm leaders Horst Wessel and Hans Maikowski ( Mördersturm 33 ) sparked outrage.

Positions

In relation to the right-wing extremist Internet platform Altermedia , Bräuniger stated that his declared goal was to overcome the existing democratic system in Germany and “still” to rebuild the German Empire . The citizenship law should be based on the "principle of descent" and in borderline cases be decided by the "Reichsgericht". He advocates a far-reaching nationalization of "key industries" and strict control of emerging state-owned companies, while at the same time abolishing the trade unions. The representation of workers' interests will be taken over by "the Reich". According to his ideas, family planning should be “on the whole also a matter for the state”.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Printed matter 19/1502 of the German Bundestag, PDF file
2. ↑ Constitution Protection believes in recovery of the NPD after leadership changes . In: Die Welt , December 2, 2005. Retrieved November 8, 2013.
3. ↑ New NPD state executive elected ( Memento from June 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). Senate Department for Home Affairs and Sport, Department II - Protection of the Constitution Berlin , November 22, 2005.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Bräuniger, Eckhart . Netz gegen Nazis , December 6, 2011. Accessed November 8, 2013.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Eckart Bräuniger resigned from NPD  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . infoportal24.org, January 7, 2013. Accessed November 8, 2013. (Cited as source: Altermedia )  
6. ↑ Tomas Sager: NPD board member says goodbye . Look to the right , January 8, 2013. Retrieved November 8, 2013.
7. ↑ Oliver Cruzcampo: Political disenchantment with the NPD? NPD leader Bräuniger declares resignation from the party . Right end , January 8, 2013. Accessed November 8, 2013.
8. ↑ Frank Jansen : Croatian mercenaries as the new Berlin NPD boss? Zeit Online Blogs , January 26, 2010. Retrieved November 8, 2013.
9. ↑ Between competition and alliances of convenience ( memento of the original from May 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Antifaschistisches Infoblatt , AIB 64, No. 4/2004, pp. 26-27. Retrieved November 8, 2013.  
10. ↑ Constanze von Bullion : A storm and a lot of headwind . In: Der Tagesspiegel , October 10, 2006. Retrieved November 8, 2013.
11. ↑ NPD-Blog.info with video of the RBB report
12. ↑ Altermedia in conversation with the Berlin NPD politician Eckart Bräuniger  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Altermedia , January 22, 2009. Retrieved November 8, 2013.