Hooligans against Salafists

Hooligans against Salafists (short form: HoGeSa ) is a nationwide action group, predominantly from the hooligan scene, which claims to be against Salafism in Germany . The group, which until then had been active mainly on the Internet, became known primarily through a demonstration on October 26, 2014 in Cologne , in which between 3,000 and 5,000 people took part. There was a street battle with the police.

founding

The hooligans against Salafists are not a fixed and uniform grouping, but are based on the concept of the English Defense League , which was founded by hooligans in 2009 and is anti-Islamic . Actions and strategies within the hooligan scene are sometimes rejected.

In 2012 the Internet network GnuHoonters ( homophone to "New Hunters") was founded, which consisted of 17 hooligan groups from all over Germany. This group initially saw the more left-wing ultra groups as enemy images. Right from the start, the founding members included right-wing extremists from all over Germany. On the initiative of some GnuHoonters, the Internet forum Because Germans Still Dare to Dare was created , in which around 300 hooligans met, who are mainly from the right-wing extremist camp. In the forum the plan of an action front was developed, which is directed against Salafism and had leading figures of the Salafist scene in its sights, whereby the planning alternated between legal and illegal actions. The goal was to address the bourgeois camp , in particular the Islamist preacher Pierre Vogel became the enemy of the group.

One of the founders in the fall of 2013 also scored the undercover agent Roland Sokol, which he considered the mass of the hooligans as "straw stupid".

From this network, the initiative Hooligans against Salafists, or HoGeSa for short, emerged in early 2014. The group appealed against Salafists mainly on the Internet and on Facebook . The Facebook group reached a group of 40,000 followers. The first actions have started. Between 100 and 300 hooligans turned up at rallies by Pierre Vogel in Mönchengladbach and Mannheim . At one of these demonstrations was of Christian secret called a self-confessed neo-Nazi and NPD - alderman in Mannheim .

On September 28, 2014, the first meeting took place in Dortmund , where around 300 hooligans met. Here were, among others Siegfried Borchardt ( rights ) and the Pro-NRW -Ratsherr Dominik Horst Roeseler present, the latter served as spokesman for the group. This was followed by rallies in Essen, Mannheim and Nuremberg, which, however, did not exceed 300 people.

Demonstrations

Cologne on October 26, 2014

Demonstration in Cologne

The group mobilized for a demonstration on October 26, 2014. A number of participants of around 1,500 was expected. This was exceeded by far, with 6,000 people already registered on the Internet. According to various media, it was ultimately around 3,000 ( Spiegel Online ) to 4,800 ( Berliner Morgenpost , Focus ) people. First they gathered at Cologne Central Station, where a rally against Salafism was taking place. Several speakers and the music group A3stus (consisting of Villain051 and RaW) performed. The category C hooligan band presented a song that they had written especially for the demo. After their appearance, the crowd sets off on a march through Cologne.

After just five minutes, some broke away from the crowd and stormed on alleged counter-demonstrators. In addition, xenophobic and neo-Nazi slogans were shouted and the Hitler salute was shown several times . Around 1,300 police officers were faced with an overwhelming force of violent hooligans, but were initially able to push the train back. 300 meters later the demonstration broke up and a street battle broke out between the police and the hooligans. Stones, bottles and fireworks were thrown by the hooligans, and the police reacted with water cannons , batons and irritant gas . 59 police officers were injured and several police cars were damaged in the riots. Seventeen suspects were arrested during the demonstration and 57 people were charged with assault and rioting .

The local police tactics such as the so-called, emphatically defensive "NRW Line" as a requirement of the riot police in the state was publicly criticized in view of the demonstration, which was much more violent than in Hanover. The Cologne police chief at the time, Wolfgang Albers , cited that it was a new, unforeseeable phenomenon. In a report for the Interior Committee of the Düsseldorf State Parliament, it was claimed on the one hand to have correctly assessed the size and danger, but at the same time to have been surprised by the willingness to use excessive and unpredictable violence against police officers. Among other things, Der Spiegel cited doubts from experts about the tactics, since there were no pre-controls, the square was not cordoned off, an alcohol ban was not enforced and no special forces were brought in. Overall, far too few officials were requested. Spiegel Online quoted one of the deployed officers with the allegation that the hooligans who were surrounded were released without their personal details being recorded.

Demonstrations not carried out

Initially, further demonstrations were announced in Berlin on November 9th and in Hamburg on November 15th. In the course of the developments, an Austrian group also announced a demonstration. The demonstration in Hamburg announced for November 15th under the motto “Europe against the terror of the Islamic State ” was canceled for fear of counter-actions by the Antifa . The demo in Aachen registered for November 8, 2014 , the motto of which was "Aachen against Salafists", was prohibited because the applicant wore a T-shirt with the words HoGeSa on it and, despite his denial, he was in contact with right-wing extremists and Could prove hooligans. According to the police, a demonstration also planned for November 15 in Berlin with 10,000 participants was reported using false personal data. The suspicion of a forgery of documents should be examined . The registration is therefore invalid. A rally on April 19, 2015 in Karlsruhe was canceled without giving any reason and without replacement.

Hanover, November 15, 2014

Demonstration in Hanover

A rally in Hanover starting in front of the main train station was announced for November 15th . The Hanover police forbade this gathering, as a repetition of the events in Cologne was feared. Already before, the previous chairman, a 44-year-old man from Lower Saxony, against the November 5 on suspicion of sedition is determined told not to stand as an organizer available. However, the Hanover Administrative Court partially upheld a complaint by the organizer on November 13th and allowed the event in the restricted form of a stationary meeting on the area of the old central bus station , which also had to end an hour earlier than planned due to the early darkness.

Under the motto “Europe against the terror of Islamism”, this major HoGeSa event took place at the old central bus station in Hanover under strict security conditions. Instead of the expected 5000 participants, only about 3000 people came to the demonstration. The event was accompanied by around 6,600 police officers.

About 6,000 people took part in several counter-demonstrations. Demonstrators, some from the left, tried to break through police barricades. They threw objects and damaged a police vehicle. Eleven people were arrested. According to the HAZ , there was a "targeted attack" on a restaurant. Accordingly, "a bunch of autonomous people from the Antifa movement suddenly attacked the Larifari city bar".

In a further attack, a group of around 30 to 40 masked people who, according to the police and the suspicions of various media, "belong to the left scene", chased four participants in the Hogesa demonstration in the northern part of Hanover and attacked them with batons and pepper spray. The victims were seriously injured when they were kicked on the ground. Police are investigating attempted homicide.

Cologne on October 25, 2015

For October 25th, the pro-NRW activist Roeseler registered the HoGeSa demonstration 2015 under the name "Cologne 2.0". The Cologne police had tried to ban the event. The Higher Administrative Court in Münster gave the hooligans the right on October 21, 2015 and approved the renewed meeting. The court placed restrictions on the event. The participants were not allowed to roam downtown Cologne as originally requested by "Cologne 2.0". On October 22, 2015, the police decided that the demonstration had to be held at Barmer Platz in the Deutz district on the right bank of the Rhine . The organizers, however, unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit before the administrative court.

According to the police, 1,000 participants were registered; but she expected more. According to WDR information, 3,500 officers from North Rhine-Westphalia and five other federal states , as well as the federal police, were on duty.

Ultimately, 700 hooligans demonstrated in Deutz with a delay of almost 2 hours, because not enough stewards could be found beforehand who had neither a criminal record nor were they drunk. More than 15,000 people attended the counter rally. A broad alliance of parties, churches, 1. FC Cologne , carnival clubs and others had called for counter-rallies . A spokesman for the counter-demonstrators recalled the attack on Henriette Reker on October 17, 2015, just a week before the HoGeSa demonstration.

Dortmund on October 8, 2016

Marcel Kuschela, co-founder of HoGeSa and member of the hooligan band VollKontaCt , registered a demonstration in Dortmund on October 8, 2016 and received a notice of restrictions , although a march through the city center had been banned. The Association Together Strong Germany , a spin-off from HoGeSa, which is monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution , sued against the marching ban, which the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia rejected. The call for a demonstration was supported by Dominik Horst Roeseler, who had already been there in 2014 in Dortmund. The motto of the protest march was “Shift in the shaft - together against terror ”.

On that day, around 500 participants (140 of them right-wing extremists) protested at Dortmund Central Station where the Hitler salute was occasionally shown . As a result, a dismissal was issued and one participant was provisionally arrested after insulting the police . An arrest warrant was also carried out by the evening and three people were taken into custody. Apparently a car was set on fire in a side street. Up to 280 counter-demonstrators from the BlockaDO alliance protested against the march on site. More than 2000 police officers were on duty.

rating

The hooligans against Salafists are bourgeois in their external presentation and seek to merge with the center. According to experts from politics and the police, the hooligans against Salafists are a nationwide association of primarily hostile groups in the hooligan scene, including a large number of people who are prepared to use violence. The group is also a reservoir for other radical forces. It is not limited to the hooligan scene, rather right-wing extremist parties, including Pro NRW , Dierechte and the NPD , tried to influence the movement, although the hooligans set the tone. After the riots in Cologne, the politically right-wing , Islam-critical blog Politically Incorrect sided with the HoGeSa. Party members of Dierechte and NPD raved about the group's potential.

In view of the demo on October 26th, the new dimension of violence and the high recruitment potential of the hooligan scene were registered. The police operation against the demo was rated positively by Ralf Jäger , the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, the situation had been precisely assessed and the police had reacted consistently. According to Jäger, right-wing extremists and hooligans are linked by "diffuse anti-Muslim racism, an affinity for violence, radical nationalism and aggressive masculinity". The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution announced that it will examine the extent to which hooligans are being instrumentalized by extremist groups. Hans-Georg Maaßen , President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, emphasized at the same time that hooligans have not yet been an object of observation for the Protection of the Constitution. For the most part, they are "politically indifferent"; their values are "drink beer and beat up". However, right-wing extremists tried to mingle with the hooligans.

literature

Phillip Becher , Christian Begass , Josef Kraft : The uprising of the West. AfD, PEGIDA & Co .: From the salon to the street. PapyRossa-Verlag , Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-89438-587-3 .
Patrick Gensing : HoGeSa - How hooligans build right bridges . Right-wing extremism dossier, Federal Agency for Civic Education , January 21, 2015.

Individual evidence

↑ Hooligans argue about further marches - Separated in the colors and the matter ( memento of October 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de of October 29, 2014

↑ The model from England , Zeit Online from October 31, 2014

^ Rafael Buschmann: Right-wing extremist network: Hooligans and neo-Nazis threaten German football. Spiegel Online , November 13, 2013, accessed October 28, 2014 .

↑ Christoph Ruf: Exchange of hate on the Internet: The Nazi Hool Network. Spiegel Online , May 5, 2014, accessed October 28, 2014 .

↑ Violence in football: Hogesa founder was V-Mann Der Spiegel, October 13, 2015

↑ ^a ^b Maik Baumgärtner, Rafael Buschmann, Jörg Diehl, Hubert Gude, Sven Röbel, Christoph Ruf, Jörg Schindler, Fidelius Schmid, David Walden, Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt: Street fight - after the game . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 2014, p. 28-30 ( online ).

↑ Rafael Buschmann: Hooligan meeting in Dortmund: plate slogans against Salafists. In: Spiegel Online . September 28, 2014, accessed October 28, 2014 .

^ ^A ^b ^c Felix Laurenz: Hooligan supporters rush against Muslims in front of the Cologne demo. In: DerWesten.de . October 24, 2014, accessed October 28, 2014 .

↑ Johannes Nedo, Sebastian Weiermann: Police warn of “new dimensions of violence”. Tagesspiegel , October 27, 2014, accessed on October 31, 2014 .

↑ Christoph Ruf, Rafael Buschmann: Hooligan rampage: right-wing extremist, drunk and extremely dangerous. In: Spiegel Online . October 27, 2014, accessed October 28, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c Politics insists on hardship against hooligans. In: Focus Online . October 27, 2014, accessed October 28, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Rafael Buschmann, Jörg Diehl: Police in Cologne hooligan riot: surprised, overwhelmed, inferior. In: Spiegel Online . November 19, 2014, accessed January 11, 2016 .

↑ Reiner Burger: After the assaults, Cologne's police chief has to resign . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . January 8, 2016 ( faz.net [accessed January 11, 2016]).

↑ ^a ^b Hooligans register demos in Berlin and Hamburg. In: Zeit Online . October 28, 2014, accessed October 28, 2014 .

↑ Andreas Speit : Fear of the Antifa. taz.de , October 30, 2014, accessed October 31, 2014 .

↑ "HoGeSa" shirt reveals applicant: Demo in Aachen prohibited. nordbayern.de, November 8, 2014

↑ HoGeSa in Berlin: “There is no registered hooligan demonstration” . Spiegel Online , November 1, 2014

↑ Stefan Jehle: After the appearance of Pegida: Will Karlsruhe become a right-wing extremist center? In: Stuttgarter Zeitung Online , April 16, 2015; accessed on September 20, 2018.

↑ Hooligan demo now planned in Hanover. tagesschau.de , November 2, 2014, archived from the original on November 2, 2014 ; Retrieved November 2, 2014 .

↑ Police want to ban hooligan demonstration in Hanover. Norddeutscher Rundfunk , November 7, 2014, archived from the original on November 10, 2014 ; Retrieved November 7, 2014 .

↑ The court allows the gathering “Europe against the terror of Islamism” as a stationary gathering on the area of the old central bus station and orders further restrictions , Hanover Administrative Court , accessed on November 13, 2014

↑ Stefan Schölermann: Court allows hooligan demo subject to conditions , NDR Info , accessed on November 13, 2014

↑ Tobias Morchner: Hooligan demonstration: 6600 police officers prevent riots , Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung , November 16, 2014

^ Hooligan gathering and counter-demo: "Get out, this is our city" , Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung , November 15, 2014

↑ Tobias Morchner, Christian Link: Autonomous people raid Larifar city bar . In: HAZ , November 16, 2014

↑ The hunt for hooligans ends with seriously injured people , Welt.de

↑ Angelika Henkel and Stefan Schölermann: Attack on hooligans: Attempted killing? ( Memento from November 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), on: NDR.DE from November 17, 2014, 7:03 p.m.