Gundolf Koehler

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Gundolf Wilfried Köhler (born August 27, 1959 in Schwenningen am Neckar , † September 26, 1980 in Munich ) was a right-wing extremist student from Donaueschingen . He is charged with the 1980 Oktoberfest attack. According to the investigative authorities, he planned and carried out the attack for personal reasons. This representation was and is often questioned, among other things because of Koehler's proven connections to right-wing extremist organizations. After files were found in 2008 and new witness statements became known, the Federal Public Prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice was forced to reopen the investigation; These were discontinued on July 7, 2020, but the attack was now classified by the federal prosecutor as a clearly right-wing extremist terrorist act.

Life

Köhler grew up in Donaueschingen. As a 14-year-old he took part in NPD events and collected badges, books and pictures from the Nazi era . For years a picture of Adolf Hitler hung over his bed . He bought a steel helmet and soldiers' boots and practiced with a gun in a shooting club. On October 7, 1980, during a house search after his death, the police found a membership card of the Wiking Youth . According to his mother, Köhler had a “military trick” from 1975 onwards. He contacted the military sports group Hoffmann and experimented with chemicals in the cellar. In 1975 an exploding mixture injured his face.

Köhler completed his Abitur in 1978 at the Fürstenberg-Gymnasium Donaueschingen . Shortly afterwards he signed up for two years as a regular soldier in the German Armed Forces and began his service with the 292 Panzer Grenadier Battalion in Immendingen . His wish to be employed as a fireworker or a weapons, rocket and ammunition technician was not met, so that in July 1978 he turned away from the Bundeswehr, disappointed. In November 1978, he was released due to a deafness that was likely simulated.

From April 1, 1979, Köhler studied geology at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen . From March 1979 he sporadically took part in events of the right-wing extremist university ring Tübinger Studenten , whose leading member Axel Heinzmann he already knew from at least two previous events. In 1976, he accepted an invitation from Heinzmann to Tübingen, where on December 4, 1976 he witnessed the mass brawl between supporters of the military sports group Hoffmann and counter-demonstrators. In 1977 Heinzmann came to Donaueschingen, where Köhler met him as part of a leaflet campaign.

Oktoberfest attack

Gundolf Köhler is charged with the Oktoberfest attack, the bomb attack on the Munich Oktoberfest on Friday, September 26, 1980. A bomb that detonated at 10:19 p.m. at the entrance to Wirtsbudenstrasse on Theresienwiese killed 13 people - including Koehler himself - and injured 211 others. At the time of the attack, he was 21 years old.

Shortly after the attack, the police found Koehler's identity card at the scene. A comparison of his personal details with the intelligence information system NADIS the next morning showed that Köhler was a supporter of the military sports group Hoffmann . According to NADIS and the material seized from Karl-Heinz Hoffmann in 1977, there was an exchange of letters between Köhler and Hoffmann in 1976 about the establishment of a local branch of the WSG in Donaueschingen. The information from NADIS also showed that Köhler was recorded in the WSG index as an active supporter in 1977 and 1979. According to a note from Hoffmann on the 1979 card index, Köhler had participated in two exercises. Hoffmann recommended Axel Heinzmann to support Köhler in setting up a military sports group.

On the evening of the day after the attack, an indiscretion by the investigating authorities made Köhler's name and the connection with the right-wing extremist military sports group Hoffmann, which was banned in January 1980, publicly known nationwide , citing information from the illustrated magazine Quick . Köhler's connections to the right-wing extremist scene were only half-heartedly examined by the investigators - possibly under political pressure from the Bavarian state government. Köhler is described in the final report of the State Criminal Police Office as a socially isolated individual perpetrator who is said to have built, transported and detonated the bomb on his own, and is therefore made solely responsible for the attack.

The thesis of the isolated individual perpetrator Köhler is still in doubt today. For example, when the bomb was being built, Köhler had a vacation job, part of which he invested in a building society loan, placed an ad and joined a rock band. The GDR Ministry for State Security , which was well informed about the investigation by informants, assumed that other people would be involved, for example due to the complicated construction of the bomb. According to research by the journalist Tobias von Heymann , Köhler had proven contacts to leading right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis at the time and had been active in right-wing extremist circles for around five years before the attack.

As a possible motive, the news magazine Spiegel Online mentions intended support for Franz Josef Strauss's candidacy for chancellor : After the attack, "you could blame the left, then Strauss will be elected," said Koehler in view of the October 5th Have voiced the federal election in 1980 .

The investigating authorities have "stubbornly" stuck to the thesis of the individual perpetrator for three decades ( Süddeutsche Zeitung ) . The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office kept the 28 folders with 887 tracks and around 10,000 pages on the Oktoberfest attack under lock and key until mid-2014. The lawyer Werner Dietrich, who advocated a reopening of the investigation on behalf of several victims, failed in 1984 and 2008 with two requests for reopening. Evidence, such as a piece of a hand torn off in the attack, which could not be assigned to a victim and which DNA tests could possibly provide information, were destroyed as early as 1997. An ex-investigator called this procedure "very annoying" with a view to today's technical possibilities. Attorney Dietrich says: "In the investigation of the RAF terrorism, such a mishap, if it was at all, would never have happened."

literature

  • Ulrich Chaussy : Oktoberfest. An assassination attempt. Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 1985, ISBN 3-472-88022-8 .
  • Ulrich Chaussy: Oktoberfest - The assassination attempt. How the suppression of right-wing terror began. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86153-757-1 .
  • Tobias von Heymann: The Oktoberfest Bomb: Munich, September 26, 1980 - the act of an individual or a terrorist attack with a political background? NoRa, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86557-171-7 .
  • Subchapter The WSG and the Oktoberfest attack . In: Rainer Fromm : The "Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann": Presentation, analysis and classification. A contribution to the history of German and European right-wing extremism . Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt / Main u. a. 1998, ISBN 3-631-32922-9 , pp. 336–342 (also: Dissertation University of Frankfurt (Main), 1997).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oktoberfest assassination attempt - new explosive lead surfaced. Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 28, 2014, accessed February 23, 2019
  2. ↑ Oktoberfest assassination attempt - Attorney General resumes investigation. Spiegel Online , December 11, 2014, accessed February 23, 2019
  3. ↑ Fidelius Schmid: Oktoberfest assassination - Federal Prosecutor General stops investigations. Spiegel Online , July 7, 2020, accessed July 7, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Annette Ramelsberger: The Oktoberfest attack is now what it was: Terror - Comment. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. July 8, 2020, accessed July 10, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b In the right net . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 2011 ( online ).
  6. ↑ With dumdum out of the line of fire . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1980 ( online ).
  7. ↑ Assassinations: Inextricable Thicket . In: Der Spiegel . No. 38 , 1985 ( online ).
  8. ↑ The Oktoberfest Bomb . 3sat, September 16, 2009.
  9. ↑ Reinhard Jellen : The Oktoberfest attack was not the work of a single perpetrator - Interview with Tobias von Heymann about his book "The Oktoberfest bomb - the act of an individual or a terrorist attack with a political background?" - Part 1. In: Heise Online , 26 July 2010.
  10. ↑ Attack on the Munich Oktoberfest - the perpetrator was involved in the neo-Nazi scene. In: Spiegel Online , October 23, 2011.
  11. ^ Christian Rost, Frank Müller: New explosive trace emerged. Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 28, 2014, accessed February 23, 2019
  12. ↑ Florian Fuchs: The explosiveness of gauge 253.Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 3, 2014, accessed February 23, 2019
  13. ↑ Tobias Lill: Oktoberfest attack - The forgotten traces. Spiegel Online, September 26, 2014, accessed February 23, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Koehler, Gundolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Köhler, Gundolf Wilfried (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German neo-Nazi and assassin
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwenningen
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1980
Place of death Munich