Gerhard Kaindl

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Gerhard Kaindl (born July 7, 1944 , † April 4, 1992 in Berlin ) was an electrical engineer from Berlin-Schöneberg. From 1989 to 1991 Kaindl was a member of the Republicans . After that he was the state secretary of the German League for People and Homeland (DLVH). In addition, he was a member of the Die Nationalen e. V. , by whom he was put up as a candidate for the Berlin elections to the district council meetings on May 24, 1992. He became known as the victim of a politically motivated attack in 1992 in which he was fatally injured. The tactical and legal preparation of the case attracted media interest across the country.

Act and legal reappraisal

On the night of April 3 to 4, Kaindl was together with six other participants in a previously attended lecture by Konrad Windisch on the subject of " Ludwig Uhland - poet and patriot", including the then Berlin state chairman of the republicans, Carsten Pagel , and the right-wing extremist publisher Dietmar Munier , guest of a Chinese restaurant in Berlin-Neukölln , where the group of up to seven people was attacked. In the course of the attack, Kaindl was fatally killed with a knife and Thorsten Thaler , the deputy editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit , who was also present , was seriously injured. A background of PKK activists was initially suspected, but speculations regarding membership in Turkish anti-fascist circles were also expressed.

In a trial in 1994, a total of seven people of Turkish and Kurdish origin were charged; three were sentenced to three years in prison for bodily harm resulting in death, and two others were sentenced to suspended sentences. The main culprit is still on the run. In their confessions, the defendants stated that, against the background of the right-wing extremist attacks in Hoyerswerda , Rostock , Mölln and Solingen, they felt the presence of the well-known party officials as a “provocation”; With the exception of Hoyerswerda, however, all of the attacks mentioned did not occur until after Kaindl's death. Their goal was to drive right-wing extremists out of the “ Kiez ”. The prosecution had initially brought charges of murder and attempted murder, but the court refused. But the allegations of murder and bodily harm had to be dropped because of investigative errors. A completely uninvolved 33-year-old was imprisoned for a year on false charges. Christian Ströbele ( The Greens ) appeared as defender , who spoke of a scandal in the context. In his opinion, the criminal police had used "dubious sources", "investigated according to preconceived ideological opinions" and tried to push through a murder plot. The court, on the other hand, would have considered a higher sentence to be appropriate had it not been for the fact that an official's “obsession” had made the original allegations unenforceable.

When the verdict was announced, the trial chairwoman, Judge Gabriele Eschenhagen, rejected allegations from the "so-called left-wing scene", according to which the trial was politically motivated and wrongly criminalized Antifas . In order to invalidate them, she referred to the low prison sentences against the defendants and to the fact that a "wave of indignation" would have broken out over the court if it had "otherwise passed this judgment against rights ". Antifas advised them to "distance themselves from Kaindl's death", since they should not endanger the sympathy they enjoyed in the population through such actions.

Significance for the right-wing extremist scene

Since his death, the right-wing extremist scene has tried to stylize Gerhard Kaindl as a kind of martyr . He is often mentioned in connection with other right-wing extremist activists such as Sandro Weilkes from Neuhaus am Rennweg in Thuringia or Daniel Wretström from the Swedish municipality of Salem or right-wing populist politicians such as Pim Fortuyn (Netherlands) who are involved in arguments with actual or supposed anti-fascists or young people with a migrant background were killed. Among other things, there is a “Gerhard Kaindl Funding Organization” from the environment of the extreme right-wing Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Bildungswerk eV and the German League for People and Homeland. Leading politicians of the NPD like Frank Schwerdt still refer to the Kaindl case in their statements. The case is also mentioned in Hans-Helmuth Knütter's publication “ Die Faschismuskeule - The last contingent of the left ”.

Discussions in the left and radical left scene

The circumstances of the crime and the investigations that followed were discussed intensively in the left and anti-fascist scene and dealt with in several books, among other things (see literature). Thousands of demonstrators have also protested “against the criminalization of the anti-fascist resistance” and demanded the release of the “imprisoned foreign left”.

Other receptions

The author Raul Zelik describes in the novel eat and die anyway. Novel about a life on the run, the view of a fictional participant and his subsequent escape from the investigative authorities and the police to Latin America. The book served as a template for a play that was performed at the Thalia Theater Halle and was shown as a radio play on the public broadcaster NDR in May 2007 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Search in the Kaindl murder case , Berliner Zeitung of May 25, 1994.
  2. ^ Prosecutors demand prison sentences in the Kaindl trial , Berliner Zeitung of November 12, 1994.
  3. ↑ a b c Jeannette Goddar: Rügen im Kaindl trial , taz.de , November 17, 1994.

literature

  • autonomous LUPUS group (ed.): The dogs bark ... From A - RZ. A journey through time through the 68 revolt and the militant struggles of the 70s to 90s . Unrast, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-89771-408-6 .
  • Geronimo: embers & ashes. Reflections on the politics of the autonomous movement . Unrast, Münster 1997, ISBN 3-928300-63-6 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kaindl, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer, functionary of the German League for People and Homeland
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1944
DATE OF DEATH April 4, 1992
Place of death Berlin