Comradeship South

Comradeship South is the name of a neo-Nazi group that belongs to the apparently politically independent spectrum of free comradeships . She became known because of a planned bomb attack in 2003 when the foundation stone was laid for the Jewish cultural center in Munich . The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution rated the group as a terrorist organization , as did several court decisions on members of the group.

The camaraderie

The neo-Nazi Norman Bordin founded the “Comradeship South - Action Office South Germany” (AS) in December 2001. After Bordins was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment without parole , the right-wing extremist Martin Wiese took over the leadership role in the “Kameradschaft Süd”. The comradeship included around 25 neo-Nazis and right-wing extremist skinheads . It appeared primarily through participation in demonstrations (e.g. against the Wehrmacht exhibition ) and discussions in the Munich area. There should also have been close contacts to the collective movement “ Democracy Direct ”. The comradeship also saw itself as the successor to the military sports group Hoffmann , from whose environment an attack on the Munich Oktoberfest was committed in 1980 . In the course of an investigation into a bodily harm offense, weapons and explosives were found among members of the comradeship, and plans to attack the Oktoberfest or a Jewish center were suspected. The subsequent process received nationwide attention.

After the leaders were arrested, the group almost came to a standstill. In April 2004, however, websites of the Comradeship South and the “Action Office South” were again available, which together with the websites of the “ National Info Telephone (NIT) South Germany” and the “ Kampfbund Deutscher Sozialisten (KDS) Munich” were called “ Resistance South ” published. At the moment they seem to have disappeared from the network again. At the restart after the group was dissolved, Norman Bordin, who has since been released from custody, acted as domain registrant at the Bernau am Chiemsee correctional facility . Bordin was appointed successor "in the leadership of the National Resistance" by Friedhelm Busse , whom he had met in the Bernau prison.

At the turn of the year 2004/05, the Kameradschaft Süd hit the headlines again because it took over the security of the hall for a “political New Year's meeting” with the participation of the Saxon NPD chairman Holger Apfel in Munich. This was organized by the late Munich City Councilor Johann Weinfurtner. Weinfurtner was a member of the Republicans and had direct contact with Martin Wiese through his Democracy Association . The Republicans said they had excluded him from the party, but Weinfurtner did not recognize this.

Planned attacks

The name "Kameradschaft Süd" has become known nationwide, primarily through media reports since September 2003, when several members of this association were arrested for a planned bomb attack at the laying of the foundation stone for the Jewish Center in Munich on St.-Jakobs-Platz . Wiese should, according to the complaint, together with the he founded " protecting group on time" (SG) of the 65th anniversary of Kristallnacht adopted on 9 November 2003 bomb attack on the new Jewish center in Munich in the eye and, to this end explosives procured to have. Further attacks were planned on mosques, a Greek school in Munich and asylum seekers' homes. A total of 14 kilograms of explosives were seized, including 1.7 kilograms of TNT. Bavaria's Interior Minister Günther Beckstein spoke of a " Brown Army Fraction " at the time. At the same time, as of September 11, 2003 - the Federal Public Prosecutor had taken over the investigation in the meantime - investigations were made on suspicion of the formation of a terrorist organization (Section 129a of the Criminal Code). A total of 14 arrest warrants were issued, three of them against women. In April 2004, the Attorney General brought charges against five and in June against four other people, Martin Wiese, Karl-Heinz Statzberger, David Schulz and Alexander Maetzing.

prehistory

When it came time to get explosives for the planned attacks, two of the later accused drove to Poland and looked for mines in a forest area . They released two buckets of the alleged explosives from the mines they found. They were practice mines, the mass was practically nothing more than plaster of paris . A little later they were in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to a bazooka grenade came they aufsägten to refer to the information contained explosives. This explosive alone would have been enough to have a devastating effect. When the plans became more concrete, an then 18-year-old comrade offered herself to be a suicide bomber .

The judicial proceedings

On October 6, 2004, the proceedings against five members of the right-wing extremist "Kameradschaft Süd" who were classified as followers began before the State Security Senate of the Bavarian Supreme Court . The public was excluded on the opening day of the trials , with reference to the youth of the defendants, who were between 18 and 23 years old.

According to the indictment of the Federal Prosecutor's Office , the aim of the group was the “elimination of the free democratic basic order in favor of a system of rule influenced by the National Socialists ”. Corresponding to this plan, the charges were also heavy: violation of the Arms and Explosives Act, violation of the War Weapons Control Act and membership in a terrorist organization . According to German law, the minimum sentence for the last two offenses is one year imprisonment .

November 24, 2004 was the date for the start of the main public hearing against Martin Wiese, who was accused as ringleader , and three other defendants.

The procedure, which took place under strict security precautions, was intended to show that the state is defensible against violent extremists. However, the taz feared: “If you have seen the smirking, well-known Munich right-wing extremists who were among the spectators in the courtroom on the first day of the follow-up proceedings, it becomes clear that such a prominent and complex procedure can also trigger another reaction: the militant right feels that he is finally being taken seriously as an opponent of the state. ”However, these fears were not confirmed. However, the process was by no means problem-free. A V-person in the group had been active, so that - among other things in a TV program - the accusation had been raised that the crimes alleged against the group around Wiese had been "pushed" by an intelligence service. The involvement of informants was already one of the reasons why the process was terminated unsuccessfully during the process to ban the NPD. Bavaria's Interior Minister Günther Beckstein ( CSU ) had, however, confirmed the activities of the undercover agent - who had already been named as such in the indictment. In the course of the proceedings, however, any influence could be ruled out. The V-Person reported in the main public hearing of their normal activity. The reading of transcripts of a so-called “large eavesdropping attack ”, which was legally not unproblematic as a result of a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in the meantime, could also be dispensed with, since the front of the accused broke open in the course of the hearing and some of the accused were admitted.

Condemnation

At the beginning of May 2005, the court sentenced 29-year-old Martin Wiese to seven years in prison, among other things for being a ringleader in a terrorist organization. The three co-defendants - as well as four of the defendants convicted a month earlier in the first trial - were found guilty of membership in a terrorist group and each received prison terms of several years.

literature

" Explosives in Munich. Martin Wiese, Comradeship South, NPD ”. A brochure of the anti-fascist information-documentations & archivstelle münchen eV (AIDA) in cooperation with the Kurt Eisner Association for Civic Education in Bavaria eV Munich 2005. ( Download at aida-archiv.de ).