Walter Lübcke murder case

Walter Lübcke (2009)

The murder of Walter Lübcke happened on June 1, 2019 in Istha : The Hessian right-wing extremist Stephan Ernst killed the Kassel District President Walter Lübcke ( CDU ) in front of his house with a revolver shot in the head from a short distance. It was the first right-wing murder of a German politician since 1945.

Ernst was arrested on June 15, 2019 as an urgent suspect and found through DNA traces on the victim's shirt and the murder weapon. He later revoked his first confession and presented his helper Markus H. as the perpetrator. In his criminal trial, however, he confessed that he had shot himself; H. was there.

On January 28, 2021, the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main sentenced Ernst to life imprisonment and stated that he had increasingly projected his xenophobia onto Lübcke and finally shot him in order to save him for his “ racist , ethnic and national attitude” To punish attitude in refugee policy and to discourage others from a "policy of openness to the world". H. received a suspended sentence of 18 months for violating the Weapons Act.

Ernst and H. belonged to the Kassel neo-Nazi scene and had attended a citizens' meeting in Lohfelden on October 14, 2015 . There Lübcke had defended the admission of refugees with reference to charity and the Basic Law against heckling. H. had spread Lübcke's answer on the Internet and thus triggered years of hostility and death threats against him. Ernst and H. had set up an arsenal together and trained in shooting.

The murder sparked a sustained broad public debate in Germany , including about the knowledge of the German security authorities about the perpetrators' environment, the possible joint responsibility of the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), the relationship of the CDU to the AfD, attacks on local politicians and a lack of criminal prosecution Hate crime on social networks .

Investigations

Lübcke murder case

At 12:30 a.m. on June 2, 2019, Lübcke's younger son found the father lifeless on the veranda of his house. The Wolfhagen district clinic determined his death at 2:35 a.m. According to the autopsy, a bullet fired at close range at his head had killed him. Because he had no gun with him, the police assumed it was a homicide . The Hessian State Criminal Police Office (LKA) and the North Hesse Police Headquarters formed a joint special commission that investigated in all directions.

Because of years of death threats from right-wing circles against Lübcke, a right-wing extremist motive was quickly suspected. In October 2015, he publicly defended a planned refugee accommodation in Lohfelden and responded to hecklers: Anyone who rejects the values ​​of the constitution is free to leave Germany at any time. Visitors had spread his answer as a video clip on the Internet. LKA President Sabine Thurau initially saw no evidence of a connection between the act and these calls for murder and asked for no speculation. The investigators said that Lübcke was not at risk before the murder. However, they wanted to check the messages against Lübcke for content relevant to criminal law and possible connections with the crime.

Through calls for witnesses and a shipment of file number XY ... the investigators received around 160 information unresolved by June 8, including videos from the fair that had taken place next to Lübcke's property at the time of the crime.

On June 8, 2019, the police arrested a paramedic who had given first aid and wiped away traces of blood on the night of the crime to save the family the sight. After a long interrogation, he was released the next day because there was no evidence that he was involved in the crime. Because relatives and doctors initially assumed a heart failure or stroke, Lübcke's shirt had been thrown away in the hospital. It was later recovered and forensic investigation. A single flake of skin was found on it that matched the DNA of a convicted right-wing extremist, stored in a DNA analysis file . Only then did the investigators track down the perpetrator. On June 15, 2019, a special task force arrested Ernst in his home in Kassel and took him to the Kassel I correctional facility . At first he made no statements.

According to a witness, on the night of the crime, a VW Caddy and another car quickly left the crime scene after the sound of a gunshot . Ernst drove a VW Caddy that was registered in his wife's name. In addition, the key to another car that he wanted sold on the day of the murder was found in his apartment. Therefore accomplices were suspected. The second car, a Škoda car , was seized at the end of June 2019 in Kassel-Forstfeld around 1000 meters from Ernst's apartment. It belonged to Ernst's father-in-law in Thuringia. Ernst is said to have taken him over shortly before the night of the crime.

Ernst lived in Kassel around one kilometer from the initial reception facility and two kilometers from the community center in Lohfelden. He was outraged in a chat about Lübcke's appearance there and called him a “ traitor ”. According to his cell phone data, he had posted many hateful comments under the user name “Game Over” and threatened, for example: “Either this government will abdicate shortly or there will be deaths”; "No more talking, there are a thousand reasons to act and only one to do 'nothing', cowardice".

Ernst was a member of the Sandershausen shooting club in Niestetal near Kassel, but, according to the chairman, had no access to firearms. In his apartment were a blank gun and applications for permission to legally possess weapons. Due to a possible right-wing terrorist background to the crime, Attorney General Peter Frank took over the investigation from June 17, 2019.

As of June 25, 2019, five federal prosecutors and 80 special investigators investigated the traces found, the course of events, the trigger, a connection between perpetrator and victim and Ernst's possible contacts with other right-wing extremists, especially with “ autonomous nationalists ” and right-wing terrorist groups in his region. Because Hesse's interior ministry had not registered any such contacts by Ernst after 2009, it was suspected that he was following the right-wing terrorist concept of leaderless resistance or that he had been radicalized again since 2015.

Up until the prosecution, the likely course of the crime was determined: On June 1, 2019 at around 7:30 p.m., Ernst took his revolver out of his home office, drove to Istha in his father-in-law's car without a mobile phone and waited in a parking lot for the night. Then he drove into Lübcke's residential street, parked the car, hung a rucksack with the loaded murder weapon on it, went to a horse pasture on the outskirts and watched Lübcke's house for around 20 minutes. A witness saw a man with a cap and a backpack who entered the horse pasture shortly before midnight and looked at the house through a 15 centimeter long pipe. A thermal imaging monocular from the night of the crime with a photograph of Lübcke's terrace was later found in a black backpack in the trunk of the car used. When Ernst saw a light on the house (Lübcke's iPad), he is said to have finally decided to carry out the murder. He climbed through the fence of the horse pasture and walked toward the house with the cocked revolver in hand. Lübcke sat smoking a cigarette on his terrace. Between 11:20 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Ernst approached him and shot him. The bullet hit Lübcke above the right ear and killed him immediately.

Statements of the perpetrator

On June 25, 2019, Ernst made a confession at the Kassel police headquarters: He had attended the Lohfelden citizens' meeting in October 2015. Lübcke's testimony there occupied him constantly and was a major cause of the crime. According to chat notes, he saw it as evidence that the German people should be replaced by foreigners ( large exchange ). He drove to the crime scene in a VW Caddy, but committed the act alone. Public Prosecutor General Peter Frank informed the Interior Committee of the Bundestag about Ernst's statement. Frank announced him for the murder of treachery and base motives to accuse, because at home he was sitting surprised and killed for far-right hate Lübcke. Ernst's first lawyer Dirk Waldschmidt, who had temporarily been deputy chief of the NPD Hessen and a witness in the NSU trial , confirmed the confession.

Ernst also admitted his hateful comments on the net. As a “game over” he asked, “When do we fight back” and announced “many dead”. According to investigators, he turned his cell phone off before the crime and then on again. The day after the crime, he took the murder weapon to work in a duffel bag and buried it on his employer's premises. At the end of the shift, he asked a colleague for an alibi for police inquiries. The investigators rated this as evidence of a conspiratorial act. At first it remained unclear when Ernst decided to kill Lübcke and why he confessed.

According to the confession, Ernst committed the murder consciously during the fair in order to remain unrecognized and to disturb fair visitors: They celebrated as if the world was all right, but “around us the people are dying, I want the terror to them comes. "

According to media research, Ernst himself shouted “I don't believe it” and “disappear” after Lübcke's statements at the Lohfelden citizens' meeting. In the first confession, he explained in detail how his killing plan was maturing: After 2009 he broke away from the right-wing scene in order to lead a normal life with a family and a job. He recognized his earlier view of the world as wrong. In 2013 or 2014 he met Markus H. again as a temporary worker at his employer's rail technology company. H. introduced him to a local shooting club. In order to protect his family from foreign crime, he asked H. for the first time in 2014 to get him firearms. In 2015, H. took him to Lübcke's appearance in Lohfelden. Then he considered killing Lübcke for years and googled his home address. In 2017 and 2018 he drove to Istha with a pistol, but was always happy not to have carried out the deed. His killing plan had grown due to New Year's Eve in Cologne in 2015/16 , the Islamist attack in Nice in 2016 , videos of other Islamist attacks and the murder of two northern European women in Morocco . He blamed Lübcke for all of this, but never discussed it with anyone. Finally he shot him without a word.

On July 2, 2019, Ernst revoked his confession before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe. His new lawyer Frank Hannig, a co-founder of Pegida, accompanied him. The investigation continued unchanged. After details from the first confession had been reported, Hannig filed a criminal complaint on July 8, 2019 on suspicion of betrayal of secrets: These details could only come from the investigation file and were apparently specifically published.

In November 2019, Ernst confirmed to journalists that he had attended the Lohfelden citizens' meeting and that he was angry about Lübcke's statements. Markus H. brought "the weapons into play", "constantly linked them to political issues" and "always incited his environment". His contact with him was "a decisive fate". He announced a new confession. His lawyer now claimed that a second man, Ernst, had been present at the crime and that it went differently than investigated.

On January 8, 2020, Ernst stated in his second confession that H. had driven him to Lübcke's house on the night of the crime in order to intimidate him with the gun. There was a verbal argument with Lübcke on the terrace. Then a shot was released from the weapon that H. was holding. Ernst's former lawyer advised him to take the crime on himself and promised him "financial benefits" and protection for his family in return. Waldschmidt denied this. Hs lawyer Björn Clemens questioned Ernst's credibility because of constantly new versions of the story. No traces of a second perpetrator were found.

At the custody review date on March 3, 2020, the BGH decided to keep Ernst and H. in custody. Ernst is still the main suspect. His first confession matched the location of the evidence, because only his DNA was found on the murder weapon and ammunition. The course of the firing channel and the cigarette, which, according to witnesses, Lübcke was still holding in his hand after the crime, rather suggest that the shooter approached the victim unnoticed. Ernst's second confession is therefore hardly credible. H. remains urgently suspected of being assisted in murder because he was close friends with Ernst, shared his right-wing extremist ideas, and undertook target practice and political demonstrations with him. This had Ernst "conveyed encouragement and security".

Ernst had scanned “precautionary rules” onto an encrypted USB stick from the time before 2010: textile and DNA traces at the crime scene should be avoided; good local knowledge is important. He had also stated that he had attached "camouflage plates" over the real license plates for the drive to Istha and removed them again later. That is why the BGH saw a "systematic approach" to the murder and doubted Ernst's later statement that he and H. had confronted Lübcke unmasked: They would have exposed themselves to the risk that Lübcke could identify them.

Origin of the murder weapon

In 2016, Ernst had taken a gun proficiency test to apply for a gun ownership card. On June 27, 2019, he showed the police an earth depot on his employer's premises in which several revolvers, a pump gun and an Uzi-type submachine gun with ammunition were hidden. The police then arrested two people named by Ernst as possible murder helpers: Elmar J. from Höxter, who is said to have sold the murder weapon to Ernst in 2016, and Markus H. from Kassel, who is said to have brokered this purchase. Until then, only H. was known to the authorities as a right-wing extremist. Elmar J. had procured several weapons for Ernst, including the submachine gun. Their origins and other weapons buyers were determined. According to the Attorney General, H. and J. were not aware of Ernst's killing plans, but they were aware of his right-wing extremist stance. They had a possible political crime with selling weapons considered acceptable . In addition, Ernst himself sold weapons to two men in the Kassel area, but they are said not to have been involved in his act.

According to a ballistic report, the deadly bullet for Lübcke came from a .38 Special caliber short-barreled revolver from the Brazilian brand Rossi . This was in the earth depot to which Ernst had taken the investigators. There were four live cartridges and an empty case in the revolver drum. After the murder, the gun had been cleaned, greased and, like the other weapons, packed in blue garbage bags.

In October 2019, the investigators checked whether the murder weapon came from the right-wing extremist terrorist group " Combat 18 Pinneberg" led by Peter Borchert . In 2003, Ernst drove to their meeting against the Wehrmacht exhibition in Neumünster . The police had seized four Rossi revolvers from the group . One member, Bernd T., last lived in Northern Hesse.

It was then determined that a former Swiss arms dealer had imported the murder weapon from Brazil in 1987 and sold it to a Swiss man. The buyer said he still had the revolver. However, family members only found the empty packaging and said that the buyer now suffers from dementia . The further path of the weapon remained unclear. In Ernst's house there were also five silencers , a telescopic sight, 1,394 rounds of ammunition and a dashcam . Their video recordings of Lübcke's house and car were filmed from Ernst's wife's VW Caddy around 2015.

Two of the silencers matched small caliber pistols in Ernst's earth depot. In total, he had eight live weapons and considerable amounts of ammunition for them. In addition, H. had illegally given him a Mauser 98K carbine. Ernst and H. told BGH judges that they had feared "civil war-like conditions due to the immigration of foreigners and the associated increase in crime" and that they also needed targeted ranged weapons. The BGH denied this: long guns did not speak in favor of self-defense, but rather that the two wanted to actively and violently fight the invasion of immigrants taking place in their “imaginary world”. The fact that Ernst did not remove the murder weapon and the empty case, but rather prepared it professionally ready to fire and buried it, indicated that he or someone who knew him wanted to use it again later. He had justified the abandonment of the depot by saying that he wanted to have the weapons secured. A work colleague helped him bury. He denied this, but owned several weapons and ammunition of his own, which he is said to have bought from Ernst.

2016 knife attack on Iraqis

On January 6, 2016, a stranger attacked the Iraqi asylum seeker Ahmed I in Lohfelden with a knife and seriously injured him. A surveillance camera showed grainy video footage of the perpetrator, who fled on a bicycle. At the time, the police initially suspected a robbery, drug and smuggling crime in the victim area. She later questioned criminals in the region who had been suspected of being stabbers, including Ernst. He stated that he knew the accommodation in Lohfelden, had heard of the attack and had that evening off. He did not name alibi witnesses. However, his house was not searched at the time. He lived 2.5 kilometers from the crime scene. His bike as a possible escape vehicle was examined, but without result.

According to his first confession in 2019, Ernst walked through Kassel-Forstfeld (near Lohfelden) on January 6, 2016, angry about the New Year's Eve events in Cologne and handed over election posters from the Greens and the SPD. He met a "foreigner" and yelled at him that people like him had to have their necks cut off. He denied a violent attack. On July 25, 2019, the police searched Ernst's house for traces of the knife attack in 2016. In the basement they found a knife with DNA traces that they believed was the murder weapon. According to the later indictment, Ernst was indignant to his mother about New Year's Eve in Cologne on January 5, 2016, he rode his bike to the accommodation in Lohfelden the following day and rammed the knife into the back of the Iraqi man to "fear among the in of the Federal Republic of Germany people of foreign origin seeking protection ”.

In September 2019, the Attorney General also took over the investigation. From March 2020 he saw sufficient suspicion that Ernst had committed that knife attack and announced that he would also be charged with this attempted murder.

History teacher shot in 2003

Ernst had collected personal data of a Kassel history teacher and active anti-fascists in an encrypted laptop folder from 2002 . Early in the morning on February 20, 2003, strangers targeted the teacher while he was standing in his kitchen. The cartridge broke through a window and roller shutter and narrowly missed his head. He had previously received threats from the Kassel neo-Nazi scene and suspected the perpetrator or perpetrators there.

Because the blinds on the kitchen window were down, the investigators only classified the attack in 2003 as attempted grievous bodily harm. Therefore, important evidence such as the bullet and the public prosecutor's files on the process were destroyed after ten years. If an act classified as an attempted murder, they would have been preserved. Since Ernst had also been part of the Kassel neo-Nazi scene at the time, the Federal Public Prosecutor started new investigations into this unresolved case in November 2019. Until then, there was no evidence that Ernst had anything to do with it.

Enemy list and spied objects

In November 2019, the Hessian LKA found an enemy list in Ernst's data carriers with data from 60 publicly known people, town halls in the Kassel area and other objects. He had collected most of the data from 2001 to 2007. The history teacher attacked in 2003, journalists who had reported on demonstrations by the NPD , local politicians from the SPD, the Greens and the PDS, and members of the Jewish community in Kassel were among the 60 or so names . File folders had titles like “Juden Kassel” or “Daten Synagoge”. Ernst saved names, license plates, telephone numbers, addresses and archived newspaper articles about those people in it. He had also made notes on synagogue visitors, i.e. spied them out. In addition, he had saved instructions for building bombs and texts on underground fighting based on the model of the "werewolf" units. He noted that civil servants, city council members or "sometimes a mayor" could be used as terror targets, and wrote: "Everything that serves to destroy the enemy is good." According to this, he had already considered assassinations of people back then. After the find, the Hessian police informed all those affected and increased the controls at the Kassel synagogue. Its chairwoman, Ilana Katz, and some community members feared that the data could circulate among other right-wing extremists despite the age.

In older notes, Ernst had counted all “anti-German” forces and people among his enemies, “committed racial disgrace”; he needs weapons against them. He later collected addresses and license plates from individuals. Accordingly, he had considered assassinations years before the murder of Lübcke.

Perpetrator

origin

Stephan Ernst was born in 1973 in Wiesbaden and grew up from 1984 in Holzhausen above Aar , a district of Hohenstein (Untertaunus) . He went to school there and lived there until 1999. He is said to have had no contact with his peers and clubs. As early as the 1980s, he was noticed by racist attacks. He is married, has two children and lived in the east of Kassel until his arrest.

Criminal offenses

According to the Federal Central Register, Ernst had several criminal records . Some of his crimes were xenophobic and racially motivated. In 1989 he started a fire in the basement of a house in Michelbach (Aarbergen) , where mostly Turkish citizens lived . In November 1992 he attacked a Turkish imam with a knife in a public toilet in Wiesbaden Central Station and seriously injured him. The attack came first from behind and then from the front. In court, Ernst stated that he had felt sexually harassed and "found it particularly stressful that the witness [...] was clearly a foreigner". He was sentenced to probation for attempted manslaughter . In 1993 the Wiesbaden District Court sentenced him to a ten-month probationary sentence for theft.

In the same year he attacked an asylum seeker accommodation in Steckenroth with a self-made pipe bomb , which he placed on the back seat of a car, which he then set on fire between the living containers. The residents put out the fire in good time before the bomb detonated. While in custody, Ernst hit a foreign inmate with the leg of a chair. The Wiesbaden district court assessed the initial act as "attempting to cause an explosive". In 1995 Ernst sentenced Ernst to a total of six years' youth imprisonment for this, as well as for the attack in 1992 and the injury to the inmate in 1994.

In 2003, according to the investigation file, Ernst committed a joint manslaughter in Kassel and several violations of the Arms and Assembly Act. In 2003 and 2005 he was fined for two assaults, in 2004 for an insult and in 2006 for possession of a " prohibited object ". On May 1, 2009, he and around 400 neo-Nazis attacked the DGB 's May Day demonstration in Dortmund with stones, wooden poles and fists. For this he received a seven-month suspended sentence. Further criminal proceedings for arson, manslaughter, dangerous bodily harm and robbery were discontinued due to a lack of evidence, the last one in 2004.

References to neo-Nazis

Until his arrest in December 1993, Ernst had committed his xenophobic crimes alone. From 1995 in his first imprisonment, he read the right-wing extremist magazine Nation und Europa . After his release from prison at the end of 1999, he immediately made contact with the right-wing extremist scene in the Kassel area. It is believed that his father-in-law arranged these contacts for him. His car was often registered at right-wing extremist events between 2000 and 2004, including meetings of the Aid Organization for National Political Prisoners and Their Relatives (HNG).

From 2000 to 2004 Ernst was a member of the NPD district association in Kassel. According to his information from 2019, he should only have been a member of this "for a few months". In February 2002 the previous chairman of the NPD Kassel resigned. Ernst, who was nicknamed “NPD Stephan” internally, was intended to be his successor, but did not take over the office after talking to the previous boss. In 2004 he was deleted from the NPD card index due to unpaid membership fees. The NPD denied further contact with him.

According to " EXIF - Research & Analysis ", Ernst had contact with Stanley Röske in Kassel in 2002, who is now a leading member of the German section of "Combat 18". For a dropout from the scene, Ernst was a “very dangerous guy” back then. According to Exif, he was in contact with Michel Friedrich from the “ Oidoxie Streetfighting Crew ”, who tried to establish itself as the German arm of “Combat 18”. Friedrich belonged to the "Hardcore Crew Kassel" and admitted contact to the NSU terrorist Uwe Böhnhardt in the NSU trial . However, he claimed that he left the scene and hadn't seen Ernst since 2010.

In August 2002, Ernst took part in political actions with Mike Sawallich, the then head of the Hessian Young Nationalists (JN), but without a leadership role. In 2004 he demonstrated with the neo-Nazi "People's Loyal Committee for Good Advice" in Gladenbach . He was examined by the police together with several supporters of the violent neo-Nazi group " Blood and Honor ". On February 6, 2007, Ernst demonstrated with Mike Sawallich and other neo-Nazis in Kassel against a DGB event on the subject of "Old and new strategies of the extreme right". Ernst carried a sign with the inscription “End the demonization of German patriots”, provoked Muslims among the counter-demonstrators and thus triggered the following brawl. Mike Sawallich posted a youth photo on June 21, 2019 on Facebook that showed him arm in arm with Ernst and called him “the best comrade”. That is why investigators believed that Ernst's current contacts with Hessian neo-Nazis were possible.

In October 2020, the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Hesse (LfV) released file entries from V-people. After that, between April 2001 and June 2011, Ernst had repeated contact with the Thuringian neo-Nazi and leading NPD functionary Thorsten Heise . He first met him at the NPD regulars' table in Kassel, took a bus organized by Heise on May 1, 2003 to an NPD demonstration in Berlin and attended other rallies with him. In 2004 Ernst was invited to a winter solstice celebration with Heise and other leading neo-Nazis. In 2011 witnesses saw Ernst at a celebration organized by Heise for the summer solstice in Thuringia. How strongly Heise influenced Ernst ideologically is unknown. After her contacts became known, Heise remembered them, but denied personal conversations with Ernst. He later admitted in court that he was present at Heise's solstice celebration on June 18, 2011 and that Heise had wanted to protect Heise from announced political opponents during a "home defense".

Starting in 2010, Ernst built up a middle-class existence with a family, a home and shift work in a factory without showing his continuing right-wing extremist attitude to the outside world. Most recently he worked for a rail technology manufacturer in Kassel and was an archer in the rifle club. At the same time he wrote hate comments on the Internet under the alias "Game Over".

Due to the lack of evidence of right-wing extremist activities since 2010, it was assumed that Ernst adhered to the strategic guidelines of "Blood and Honor" when he withdrew from the NPD and established a bourgeois existence. According to their field manual , German cadres and individuals in particular should exercise “leaderless resistance” through independent “direct actions of violence and / or sabotage”, while “avoiding any contact with the legal part of the political struggle for their own safety” and with a camouflage bourgeois facade. "Combat 18" required membership fees at times, strictly regulated "brotherly duties" and "absolute secrecy" towards outsiders. According to the BMI, the fact that the German section limited itself to “internal meetings and attending music events” was considered naive by experts. But a renewed radicalization of Ernst since the so-called refugee crisis in 2015 was suspected.

According to media reports, Ernst was at times a member of the right-wing extremist “ Art Community - Germanic Faith Community for a way of life in keeping with the nature ”. At their annual meeting on the summer solstice in Ilfeld , Thuringia , people who belonged to the environment of the terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) , which was blown in 2011, also took part . In 2011, the species community Ernst excluded due to unpaid membership fees.

According to the NDR magazine Panorama , Ernst belonged to the neo-Nazi group “Free Resistance Kassel” until at least 2011. He may also have had contacts with leading members of the right-wing terrorist " Oldschool Society " and the violent "Sturm 18 Cassel", where investigators had seized several weapons in 2015.

It is uncertain whether Ernst took part in a neonacite meeting with members of “Combat 18” in Mücka in March 2019 and can be seen in a photograph. A forensic expert for the television magazine " Monitor " saw the identity as proven, another expert denied this.

References to AfD and identities

In December 2016, Ernst transferred 150 euros to the AfD for the purpose of “2016 election campaign donation God bless you”. The federal party recorded the amount with the name and address of the donor, but did not provide any information. The AfD Thuringia , for which the amount is said to have been intended, denied receipt. Ernst and H. took part in the “funeral march” of the right-wing extremist group “ Pro Chemnitz ” in Chemnitz on September 1, 2018 . As a result of this march, refugees, journalists and police officers were attacked until the police broke up the meeting. Many participants then joined the funeral march organized by the AfD. Ernst and H. can be recognized in photographs.

Before the state elections in Hesse in 2018 , Ernst supported the AfD Kassel, hung up election posters for their candidates at the time, and attended their get-togethers and events. The AfD Hessen confirmed his visits, but denied previous contacts with Ernst. He transferred 100 euros three times to the Identitarian Movement . He openly showed his right-wing extremist attitude on transfer slips to the fee collection center by entering “BRD sons of whores” or “traitor authority” as the recipient, “BRD compulsory tax” or “On the wall with you” as the recipient.

Ernst was a close companion of the North Hessian neo-Nazi Christian Wenzel . He was a member of "Blood and Honor" until this terrorist group was banned in Germany in 2000, and had contacts with the NSU. In January 2021, Wenzel was a candidate for the AfD Kassel for the local elections in Hesse. After his contacts with Ernst and other neo-Nazis became known, the AfD excluded him.

Possible references to the NSU

As it became known three weeks after Lübcke's murder, his name was on an enemy list of the NSU terror group for years. The list was created since the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat in Kassel in April 2006 and contained around 10,000 names; Lübcke was among the last 2000 names. From 2003 he was vice-chairman of a Hessian state parliament committee, which also dealt with refugees. As early as 1990 he was involved in youth education work in Thuringia against right-wing extremist activities.

On June 2 at 0:56 a.m., hours before the murder was known, strangers had made suspicious searches on the Internet, for example for the pair of terms 'Lübcke and head shot'. Therefore, the investigators assumed accomplices of the murder. They suspected that Ernst and H. belonged to a previously undiscovered NSU cell in the Kassel neo-Nazi scene and may have been involved in the murder of Halit Yozgat. The Deputy Federal Chairwoman of the Left Party, Martina Renner , therefore asked the Bundestag Interior Committee at the end of May 2020: “Was there another cell of the NSU in Kassel? Are there any other attacks or attempted attacks on their account? How close was the connection between the perpetrator and his supporters in this structure? "

According to police reports researched by Exif , Ernst, Stanley Röske and the neo-Nazi MK from Kassel drove together to Dransfeld on August 25, 2002 to attack anti-fascists. They used the same car of Ernst's later father-in-law Ferdinand R., which Ernst drove to Istha on June 1, 2019. During a vehicle inspection, the police noted MK's address in 2002. Back then, as he did in 2006, he lived at Holländische Str. 86, almost next to Halit Yozgat's Internet cafe (No. 82). The investigative commission into the NSU series of murders found MK's name in 2008 in a list of people that the undercover agent Benjamin Gärtner had drawn up for the then constitutional protection officer Andreas Temme . MK's cell phone had been used near the scene of the crime after a cell query in the days of Yozgat's murder. Although the police had checked the callers and neo-Nazis known to the police in the area around the crime, they had neither written down MK's address nor reasons why he had nothing to do with the murder of Yozgat. It also remained unclear which informants Andreas Temme had met in the Yozgats Internet café. MK was not mentioned in the investigation files, in any of the NSU investigative committees or in the NSU trial. He himself told Exif in January 2020 that he was not an undercover agent, did not know Yozgat and had not been at the scene of the murder. He had only briefly known Ernst; he visited him or "us" "now and then".

The neo-Nazi Corryna Görtz, who knew the NSU trio according to her former confidante, testified before the NSU investigative committee in Hesse in September 2017 that she had visited Yozgat's Internet café several times a few months before he was murdered, but was not there on the day of the murder. She denied knowing Andreas Temme, but had correspondence with the Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Ernst's friend, the Kassel neo-Nazi Mike Sawallich. She was never questioned by the police either. Although the NSU must have had helpers in Kassel for the selection of the murder victim Yozgat and the scene of the crime, the neo-Nazis' references to the murder, the NSU, Ernst and his circle of friends were not followed up until March 2020.

Possible helpers

Markus H.

The gun procurer Markus H. comes from the same area in Thuringia as the NSU and, like its members, has been an active right-wing extremist since 1990, including with the Freedom German Workers' Party (FAP; banned in 1995) and the HNG (banned in 2011).

The LfV organized a meeting with H. in 1997 and March 1998 to recruit him as an undercover agent. The second, around three-hour meeting took place in a café near his home and was observed by the LfV. H. is said to have refused a cooperation with the LfV. That should show LfV documents that the NDR saw.

Since 2004, H. has been selling weapons and weapon accessories on the “eGun” internet marketplace. He also published his real name, address and telephone number. He did 480 shops there, most recently in May 2019. He mainly traded in targets, holsters and cleaning products. At times he registered this trade with the IHK as a trade. In 2005 he tried under his pseudonym “Stadtreiniger” to get long guns, explosives and ammunition, as leaked e-mails show. He wrote to like-minded people that he had been dealing with "martial arts, the military, weapons ..." and the best instructions for armed combat for years. After the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat on April 6, 2006, H. often visited a website on which the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) asked for information on the NSU series of murders, which were still unexplained at the time. Therefore, the police questioned him as a witness on June 12, 2006. He stated that he had known Yozgat personally and was therefore interested in the state of the art in investigating the murder. He gave an alibi for the time of the crime. As a result, the investigators noted the lead as done, without pointing out H's right-wing extremist stance.

On February 14, 2009, H. and Ernst's close friend Mike Sawallich took part in a “funeral march” of around 6,000 neo-Nazis in Dresden on the anniversary of the air raids on Dresden . On May 1, 2009, he seriously took part in the attack on a DGB rally and was therefore also arrested but not convicted. In 2009, H. is said to have spread hateful comments on the website of a local newspaper under the pseudonym "Stadtreiniger".

In 2011, the city of Kassel H. issued a "clearance certificate" according to the Explosives Act, with which he was allowed to learn how to deal with explosive substances in courses. He trained as a sport shooter in Kassel rifle clubs and passed an examination in 2012. According to a testimony from H's environment, he practiced shooting with his own sharp weapons in various rifle clubs and Ernst loaned them to practice. This was a "good shooter".

In March 2015, after years of litigation, the administrative court of Kassel H. approved a gun ownership card with ammunition authorization . In 2007, Kassel's city administration refused him the card because the Kassel District Court had fined him in 2006 for using the symbols of unconstitutional organizations. The city administration rejected H's renewed application for a gun ownership card in 2012 because, according to information from the LfV Hessen, he had participated in an NPD demonstration in 2008, had been arrested in 2009 for dangerous bodily harm and breach of the peace and had spoken in right-wing forums under the pseudonym "Stadtreiniger" . However, the LfV did not provide the city administration with any information about H's right-wing extremist activities since 2009, for example about his active membership in the neo-Nazi group “Freier Resistance Kassel”. Because the information submitted by the LfV was older than five years, it no longer constitutes a weapon ban under the Weapons Act. That is why H's lawsuit against the city administration was successful. Since then he has legally owned three handguns and two long guns.

The LfV Hessen had not reported recent entries about right-wing extremist activities by H. to the court. In 2010 an undercover agent mentioned that H. wanted to take part in a neo-Nazi march. In 2011 the LfV noted that H. was distributing anti-Semitic videos on a right-wing extremist YouTube channel. In June 2020, the President of the LfV Hessen Robert Schäfer stated that the LfV had not classified the entry from 2010 as “open and judicially usable” information and therefore not passed it on. He could not explain the non-disclosure of the entry from 2011, but admitted that its disclosure might have prevented H's weapon purchases.

In October 2015, H. visited Lübcke's appearance in Lohfelden with Ernst, filmed it with his cell phone and spread the out of context sentence on YouTube that made Lübcke an enemy in the far-right milieu. The LfV Hessen led H. and Ernst as violent right-wing extremists. H. was also registered as a supporter of the right-wing extremist group "Free Resistance Kassel".

Like Ernst, H. belonged to the Sandershausen shooting club and, according to the club's chairman, also trained archery there, but also with firearms. Because of his previous history and because he helped Ernst set up a weapons store from 2014, the state parliament member Hermann Schaus suspected in June 2019 that both belonged to a support cell of the NSU in Kassel. Uncovering this environment, said Schaus, never succeeded in the NSU context. From autumn 2016 to October 23, 2018, Ernst trained at least five times shooting with the sharp weapons of Markus H at the Schützengesellschaft zu Grebenstein ; he shot there more than 30 times. The officially unregistered reservist comradeship "SSG Germania Cassel", to which H. belonged, had rented the shooting range once a month. So Ernst was able to legally practice handling heavy firearms despite the lack of a gun license. During the same period, according to the investigation, he again radicalized politically to the right.

In H's apartment, the investigators found a book by the right-wing extremist author and Pegidarener Akif Pirinçci , in which Lübcke's name had been highlighted in yellow with a highlighter. According to information from the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) in response to a small request from Left MP Martina Renner , the police seized 46 firearms from June 8 to July 19, 2019 during 21 searches of the three suspects' rooms. According to Spiegel research , more than 37 of the weapons found belonged to H., the rest to Ernst. Elmar J. did not have any of them.

On August 22, 2019, the BGH rejected Hs' detention complaint because he had encouraged Ernst to "actually carry out" an attack. Both were very excited about Lübcke's statement in Lohfelden in 2015 and performed joint target practice. According to his former partner, H. himself was also considering a suicide attack against foreigners. Although Ernst never mentioned his intention to murder H., H. provided “psychological assistance” to the act, participated in right-wing demonstrations with him and exchanged xenophobia. The BGH denied Hs lawyers access to the files for the testimony of the witness. Against this, his lawyer considered a constitutional complaint .

H's former partner had already warned a family court against him in a custody dispute at the end of 2018: He had illegal weapons, chemicals, a lathe and used them to produce ammunition in his apartment. He was "right-wing extremist" and was close to the "citizens of the Reich". The family court apparently did not forward these allegations to the police, as the Kassel public prosecutor did not investigate H. in 2018 or 2019 for offenses against weapons or explosives. After H's arrest, his former partner testified that he was a dangerous right-wing extremist, had promoted Ernst's radicalization and encouraged him to take part in shooting training. Both would have attended AfD events together. H. once told her that if he became terminally ill, he would commit a suicide attack and take as many "Kanaks" as possible with him to death. The charge against H. for complicity in murder is also based on her testimony. In addition, investigators are said to have confiscated an envelope in H's cell in September 2019, on which he is said to have noted the dates of previous AfD events and several times the name Björn Höcke . It is assumed that he attended events in Höcke with Ernst.

The investigators found numerous Nazi devotional objects in H.'s garage, including a bust with the portrait of Adolf Hitler , a sculpture of Hermann Göring's head and a metal swastika the size of a palm . On his mobile phone there was a photograph of a document from the Hessian University for Police and Administration classified as "classified information - only for official use". It was about searches in cases of "violent terrorist crime of nationwide importance". How H. got this document is unclear. He also had a scene guide with tips on how right-wing extremists could avoid surveillance by the security authorities. Around 250 chat messages that Ernst exchanged with H. via an encrypted messenger from April to June 2019 had been deleted on their mobile phones and could not be recovered forensically. The Federal Prosecutor's Office assumes that it was “crime-related communication”.

According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, H. entered a rifle for Ernst on his gun ownership card, trained him on guns, trained him to shoot, and thus made Lübcke's murder possible.

Elmar J.

The second-hand dealer Elmar J. was unknown to the authorities until June 2019. He is said to have expressed sympathy for the NPD on his Facebook page. The investigators found evidence of his right-wing convictions, but not politically motivated crimes. Elmar J. was probably not known to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution either.

Elmar J. denied that he had sold Ernst his murder weapon. The public prosecutor's office in North Rhine-Westphalia, however, classified him as a right-wing extremist and set up a "Telum" investigative commission to investigate him. This looked for possible weapons stores and trade routes for illegal firearms in his vicinity and interviewed a total of 150 people. J. had regularly phoned the 66-year-old gun collector Dieter R. from Steinhagen (Westphalia) and met him at flea markets. In 2005, a large arsenal with dangerous explosives and 17 “shooting pens” was discovered in R's house. For this he received a suspended sentence of 18 months in prison. In 2017 R. is said to have bought a tool and a ballpoint pen with a special mechanism from Markus H. The investigators in the Lübcke case suspected that these pens should be converted into a weapon or a prohibited object. Markus H. had pointed out to another of his customers that such a conversion would be illegal. According to the LKA, R. may have violated the Weapons Act, but not sold the weapon to Elmar J. and had no recognizable reference to right-wing extremism. At the end of 2019, however, the local police found another large weapons and explosives store in R's house. A few hours later they found R. dead in his apartment; he had apparently committed suicide. Thereupon the responsible public prosecutor's office in Bielefeld stopped the investigation against R.

On January 15, 2020, the 3rd Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice overturned the arrest warrant against Elmar J., because the investigation results available up to then did not substantiate any urgent suspicion of aiding and abetting Lübcke's murder. The investigation continued against him. At the end of 2020 he confirmed to the NDR that he had known Dieter R. for around 20 years, met him regularly at flea markets and visited him at home a few times. He stated that he had no knowledge of the origins of R's many weapons.

Alexander S.

The investigators found the previously convicted neo-Nazi Alexander S. from Alsfeld as the third chat partner in Ernst and H.'s encrypted chats via the Threema messenger service . Around 2010 he was one of the leading activists of the comradeship “ Free Forces Schwalm-Eder ” (FKSE), which by then is said to have committed around 60 right-wing extremist crimes, some of them serious. After serving his sentence, Alexander S. remained active in the Hessian NPD and later turned to the AfD. Ernst stated in his interrogations that he and Markus H. and Alexander S. attended an AfD demonstration together at least once in 2017. S. was a "buddy" of H.; both went on vacation together once. He himself wrote S. several times. He did not specify the content of the correspondence, but said that S. must have noticed his friends' hatred of Lübcke in their conversations. On the afternoon of June 1, 2019, just hours before Lübcke's murder, H. and Alexander S. spoke on the phone for four and a half minutes. S. is therefore counted in media reports to the active right-wing extremist environment of the perpetrator (s). However, the Attorney General does not classify him as a possible accomplice or a participant in the murder.

After research by the Hessischer Rundfunk , S. and H. met in mid-November 2015 at the Sandershausen rifle club and practiced shooting with sharp weapons together. On the afternoon of June 1, 2019, they were out and about in downtown Kassel. S. told investigators that he drove back to Alsfeld that evening. H. is said to have advised Ernst to install an encrypted Threema app for communication with S. Because Ernst and H. deleted their chat histories from the app shortly after the murder of Lübcke, their contents are no longer visible. During the criminal trial, Ernst later stated that he had chatted with S. but no longer knew what about.

Ernst's first defense attorney Dirk Waldschmidt had legally defended not only NPD functionaries but also the neo-Nazi Kevin S. from the “Free Forces Schwalm-Eder”.

Work colleagues

The 47 year old Timo A., a colleague of Ernst, owned a black Smith & Wesson revolver and ammunition. According to investigators, this was illegally bought from Ernst in 2016. For this he received a penalty order for 3000 euros. In his first confession, Ernst had named him as an arms buyer with similar political views: The colleague had expressed himself contemptuously about Lübcke and had encouraged him, Ernst, in his rejection of Lübcke. A's lawyer dismissed this as a "nasty defamation" ".

In June 2019, the investigators found eight rifles and handguns and devotional objects from the at the home of Ernst's work colleague Jens L. Nazi era . In February 2020, Ernst testified that L. had sold him several weapons and, after Lübcke was murdered, confessed to burying the murder weapon on the Schmiere company premises. L contested the former; the investigators believed his statement to be credible. The Frankfurt public prosecutor found no evidence that L. could have planned attacks with his weapons.

In the later criminal trial against Ernst, the two gun buyers and two other work colleagues testified as witnesses. Both had accompanied Ernst to a “Kagida” rally. One shared Ernst's view that one shouldn't take in too many refugees. The other was an AfD supporter and laid out right-wing extremist media in the break room. According to him, Ernst said at work, without being contradicted, that “traitors” should be placed against the wall, migrants should be put on a plane and thrown over the Mediterranean. Ernst's job thus appeared as an unrecognized environment for right-wing extremist agitation.

Knowledge of the security authorities

File notes

Until 2009 the LfV Hessen had classified Ernst as dangerous in an internal memo. At that time it was also in the right-wing extremism file of the BKA, to which the police and intelligence services have joint access. According to Interior Minister Peter Beuth , Ernst had a total of 37 entries in the POLAS police information system by 2009 .

After 2009, Ernst is said not to have committed any further crimes, was no longer classified as a right-wing extremist and, according to information from security authorities, was not observed by the police or the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BFV) led, according to his boss Thomas Haldenwang no personnel files more about him. However, the BfV noted Ernst's exclusion from the "species community" in an entry.

After the attack by neo-Nazis on a DGB rally on May 1, 2009, the Dortmund police reported to the North Rhine-Westphalia LKA for each of the 400 people arrested whether and to what extent they were known to the police. Despite several previous convictions of Markus H. and Ernst, the report claimed that they were not aware of any politically motivated crimes. Neither the police in Dortmund nor Kassel nor the LfV Hessen explained this false statement in response to media inquiries.

Ernst's file in the intelligence information system (NADIS) was blocked for legal reasons ("deletion moratorium") for investigating authorities, but not deleted. After criticism, the 120-year blocking period for the files on NSU contacts by Hessian right-wing extremists was shortened to 30 years.

During the investigation into the Lübcke case, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution asked a three-digit number of active informants in the area of ​​right-wing extremism about Ernst's activities since 2009. Former informants should also be asked again about this. Thomas Haldenwang emphasized: Although Ernst was no longer noticed by the authorities from 2009, Lübcke's murder was not surprising because every second right-wing extremist was classified as violence-oriented. Ernst wasn't an undercover agent; V-people in his environment would be questioned further.

The Left in Hesse asked Beuth in the Interior Committee on August 22, 2019 about the knowledge of the security authorities: why the LfV Hessen had not classified Ernst as a violent neo-Nazi and a threat since 2009, although he was active in the "Free Resistance Kassel" until at least 2011 and then traded in weapons in the neo-Nazi milieu; whether the LfV classified Markus H. as a neo-Nazi willing to use violence and kept a file on him; whether the police interrogated him as a possible perpetrator after the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat in 2006; whether he implied an acquaintance with the victim; whether a right-wing extremist convictions or political crimes committed by the arms dealer Elmar J. are known.

The experts Malte Lantzsch from the “Mobile Advisory Team Against Right-Wing Extremism and Racism” in Kassel and Adrian Gabriel (Die Linke Hessen) see serious failures by the Hessian police: Already during the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat, they had a lot of information they knew about weapons, explosives and right-wing terrorists Structures not followed up. The Hessian NSU investigative committee found that. Active neo-Nazis from the environment of the former FAP, from "Blood and Honor", "Combat 18", "Free Resistance Kassel", "Kameradschaft Kassel" and "Sturm 18" have kept their contacts and are motivated to violence again in the current social climate. This scene supported the murder of Lübcke. Combat 18 members like Stanley Röske who are active in the Kassel area are extremely dangerous because they propagate “leaderless resistance”. Thorsten Heise, who had distanced himself from the murder of Lübcke, knows the active neo-Nazis in Kassel and has contact with the Kassel hooligan scene.

According to its own information from August 2019, the LfV Hessen had knowledge of Markus H. even after 2009, but this was not "usable in court" and could not "be disclosed as evidence". It is unclear whether the LfV wanted to protect its sources or whether Markus H. stopped observing it after 2009. In the case of Markus H., the LfV did not issue a standard official certificate without citing the source in response to inquiries from the municipal weapons authorities and the Kassel administrative court.

After the Wiesbaden Administrative Court upheld a lawsuit by the newspaper Die Welt , the LfV Hessen announced in September 2019 that Ernst had appeared eleven times in a secret report on the NSU environment, not once in the 2014 report. Kassel's neo-Nazi scene was at the center of the report. This contradicted Thomas Haldenwang's statement that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had not observed Ernst since 2009. It remained unclear whether the report only mentions earlier crimes by Ernst or even more recent events, such as his renewed close contact with Markus H., his radicalization and attempts to get illegal weapons for racist attacks with the help of neo-Nazis in Kassel.

Because of the joint activities discovered by Ernst and Markus H. after 2009, the Exif research platform contradicted the classification of Ernst as a “sleeper” by Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and Constitutional Protection Chief Thomas Haldenwang: “Ernst was not a sleeper, but a thoroughly violent neo-Nazi who was at all times was within reach for the authorities. Now it has to be clarified whether the protection of the constitution […] deliberately misinformed the public and politicians again or how it can be that they did not observe the activities of Ernst and Hartmann given the immense amount of personnel and money. "

In October 2019, the LfV Hessen released the minutes of a survey in the Hessian NSU investigation committee. He asked LfV employee Karin Emich on December 21, 2015 about her 15-page report on neo-Nazis in Northern Hesse from 2009. According to their information, the report served as an overview for further observation of the neo-Nazis, to which Ernst and Markus H. belonged. Alexander Eisvogel , the head of the LfV at the time, had marked Ernst in the report with handwriting in red as "highly dangerous" after he had asked the LfV employees about him. Emich said that Ernst was not classified as a right-wing terrorist in 2009, but as violent and should therefore be given special attention. The consequences of this remained unclear because Emich could no longer see Ernst's 2015 file. The LfV blocked this in 2014 because, according to its own information, it had no new knowledge about Ernst. The file was only retained because a nationwide deletion moratorium applied to the processing of the NSU complex from 2012.

On July 10, 2019, the LfV Hessen handed over Ernst's personal file to the Attorney General. On October 2, 2019, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution sent the Federal Prosecutor General's secret reports from 2013 and 2014 to investigate the NSU murders. Peter Beuth claimed that the personal file had already contained all the information about Ernst, and denied that Markus H. appeared in the secret reports. The Federal Public Prosecutor contradicted this in January 2020: The reports would have contained findings about Ernst and Markus H. that were unknown to him. According to him, some of the secret reports were blacked out, "as far as can be seen" with information about sources, employees and the working methods of the intelligence services. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the delivered documents as “not usable in court”, but promised to deliver further documents that could be used in court before the indictment was brought. The process strengthened the criticism of the LfV Hessen: It had withheld relevant information from the investigators on the Lübcke murder case for months and continued this. While a Green MP accused the Attorney General of having requested the Hessian secret reports too late, the MP of the Left, Martina Renner , criticized the LfV Hessen for "protecting its undercover agents once again more important than solving a murder".

In response to press inquiries, the LfV Hessen claimed, contrary to the facts, until December 2019 that the name Markus H. did not appear in the two secret reports from 2013 and 2014. After the Federal Public Prosecutor invalidated this, the LfV declared that a complete record of all neo-Nazis in Hesse was not intended at the time, but only those with “direct or indirect connections to the NSU and its environment” and weapons possession. The Frankfurter Rundschau criticized that the LfV negligently underestimated the dangerousness of Markus H. and Ernst. The stated reason does not apply to H., because in those years he owned weapons, sold them to other militant neo-Nazis, was conspicuously interested in the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat and had therefore been interrogated. The fact that Ernst was mentioned eleven times in the NSU report of 2013 and never mentioned in 2014, Andreas Temme, on the other hand, twice in 2013, six times in 2014, and his colleague Benjamin Gärtner only 19 times, then six times, had to be explained. The secrecy of the NSU reports for another 30 years can therefore not be justified.

Because of all these ambiguities, the opposition parties in the Hesse state parliament decided at the end of October 2019 to set up a committee of inquiry into the authorities' knowledge of Ernst, his environment and possible references to the NSU. The committee should be given as broad a mandate as possible to incorporate new knowledge. The fact that Hessen does not have an investigative committee law delayed its implementation.

The special unit Biarex (“processing integrated or cooled right-wing extremists”), deployed after Ernst's arrest, found out by the end of March 2020 that the LfV Hessen had at least 20 active Hessian right-wing extremists, including Ernst (2015) and Markus H. (2016), wrongly for years as "Cooled down", therefore no longer observed and had separated her files from the police data systems. This was justified with their allegedly "inconspicuous vita" for five years. The special unit is still examining 150 other “cooled-down” personal cases, and it has already recommended 200 right-wing extremist “facts” for “renewed professional consideration”. 678 files from Hessian right-wing extremists were only retained because of the 2012 deletion moratorium and were blocked. The files on incorrectly classified cases were unlocked again. Interior Minister Beuth said this in response to a parliamentary question from the Left Party. The intended committee of inquiry should examine the files in full and investigate any further misjudgments expected by the LfV.

According to research by NDR and Zeit Online , the BfV and Hesse's police subjected Markus H. to a security check in 2019 because he worked for a manufacturer of armaments. According to a company spokesman, he worked in the production of vehicles and had no access to sensitive documents or weapons. The company knew nothing of his right-wing extremist stance. On June 7, 2019, five days after Lübcke's murder, the North Hesse police headquarters in Kassel informed the Office for the Protection of the Constitution that there was "no current state security police intelligence" on Markus H. At that time, neither Ernst nor his alleged helpers were known to be suspects. When H was arrested on June 15, his security screening had not yet been completed. According to the research, H. himself had informed the judge of his employer's security checks and argued that if he was allowed to work in such a company, he could hardly be so dangerous. The BfV, the LKA Hessen and H's lawyer declined to comment on the matter.

In May 2020, the LfV Hessen emphasized that neither H. nor Ernst had ever worked as V-persons for the office. According to files from 2010, the LfV did not have sufficient insight into the right-wing extremist scene in the Kassel region and only had "marginal knowledge" about individual people, but hardly any reports on groups such as the "Free Resistance Kassel". H. and Ernst were active in that group at the time. The protection of the constitution noted their wish for a better "access situation" to the neo-Nazi scene around H., wanted to introduce an undercover agent to them and recruit further undercover agents in H.'s environment.

The Hessian investigative committee began its work in June 2020 and also wanted to check why the Hessian constitutional protection agency did not pass on its findings about H's ongoing neo-Nazi activities to the weapons authority, so that H. could legally own weapons and pass them on to Ernst. According to committee members, this "serious mistake" gives reason to review processes and structures at the constitutional protection and the investigative authorities.

In October 2020, the LfV Hessen confirmed Ernst's contacts to Thorsten Heise and announced the discovery of a photograph that proved Ernst's participation in the 2011 solstice celebration organized by Heise. The find was reported to the federal prosecutor's office in July 2019, and to the interior committee of the Hessian state parliament in November 2019. Nonetheless, the LfV insisted that Ernst no longer attracted attention as a neo-Nazi after 2009. The Lübcke investigation committee criticized the late announcement of the find, which refuted Ernst's classification after 2009 as “cooled down”. He demanded that the relevant secret service documents be presented to him immediately. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court refused to allow the committee to inspect the case files due to the ongoing proceedings. The committee wanted to sue against this because Ernst's neo-Nazi environment had hardly been dealt with in the ongoing criminal proceedings.

Andreas Temme and Benjamin Gärtner

In June 2019 it became known that the NSU investigative committee of Hesse had questioned the informant Benjamin Gärtner in February 2016 about Ernst and his contacts with other right-wing extremists. Gärtner only knew him by the nickname "NPD-Stephan" and did not give any details about him, so that Ernst was not counted among the NSU's circle. The undercover agent was subordinate to the former constitutional protector Andreas Temme . The Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution has not yet released the minutes of the V-Mann survey from 2016 and his knowledge of possible contacts Ernsts.

According to Beuth's information from October 2019, Temme was an observer of the right-wing radical scene in northern Hesse with Ernst "on business" and possibly had contact with Markus H. Ernst himself did not work with the LfV Hessen. Temme had signed at least two constitutional protection reports on Ernst in 2000. Beuth emphasized that this was not surprising, since Temme was supposed to collect information about the neo-Nazi scene in Hesse, to which Ernst was one.

Before 2006, Temme was suspected of having passed on internal documents from the Hessian LKA on rocker structures to the Hells Angels . The mole in the Hessian security authorities was not found. Jürgen S. gave Temme an alibi for the first NSU murder of Enver Simsek in Nuremberg: They were at the cinema together at the time. Later Temme asked the chairman of a Kassel rifle club for information on foreign citizens.

Temme was at the scene of the murder of Halit Yozgat in Kassel on April 6, 2006 , first gave no and then false information and was therefore at times under suspicion himself. The investigators found clothing with the Hells Angels emblems, drugs, illegal ammunition and large quantities of right-wing extremist propaganda material in his apartment, including a copy of Adolf Hitler's " Mein Kampf " and pages of handwritten copies of it. According to his testimony in the NSU committee, these copies were from his youth. Temme is said to have been nicknamed "Little Adolf" as a teenager in his home village.

In June 2006 Jürgen S., employee of a Kassel security company, testified: He had known Temme since around 1990, had contact with him at a motorcycle club called "Wheels of Steel" and had practiced shooting with him in two Kassel rifle clubs (Vellmar and Waldau) . Both are only a few kilometers from the scene of the murder of Yozgat. Jürgen S.'s practice rifle was the same model that Lübcke was shot with. The number of his company cell phone, which was firmly connected to his money transporter, was dialed according to radio cell inquiries on June 15, 2005, close to the time and location of the NSU murder in Munich and six days before the first NSU murder in Nuremberg in 2000. In July 2006 Temme stated “motorcycling” and a “weakness for weapons” as hobbies. His "friend" Jürgen S. put him in touch with the president of the Kassel Hells Angels. These or other rocker groups are said to have obtained weapons for Hessian neo-Nazis.

Temme's interrogation files from 2006 and the rocker and shooter acquaintance between him and Jürgen S. were re-examined after the murder of Lübcke. The investigators suspect that the Kassel money transporter could have smuggled offenders and weapons from the NSU murders of 2000 and 2005 unnoticed past possible police checks.

In 2006 Temme was responsible for the management of the undercover agent Benjamin Gärtner. He had spoken to Ernst several times and, despite his duty of confidentiality, also gave him the name of his superior, Andreas Temme. After the Lübcke murder, it was suspected that Gärtner passed on information from the Hessian constitutional protection agency to right-wing extremists and knew more about Ernst than he had told the NSU committee. However, according to his lawyer Frank Hannig, Ernst had no direct contact with Temme. In 2007, the Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution moved Temme. He became a clerk in the Kassel regional council in the environmental and occupational safety department. The Presidium, like the Hessian Ministry of the Interior, refused to dismiss him in 2019: He was "a completely normal employee who works very well".

Reactions

Hateful comments and threats

On social media , right-wing extremists and right-wing populists often openly expressed their joy at Lübcke's shooting, insulted and mocked those killed and announced further murders. The video with Lübcke's quote from 2015 was again distributed and commented on. One post read: "The pest has now been executed." Journalists now also documented earlier comments of this kind. According to Nick Clegg , Facebook deleted every glorification of Lübcke's murder from its pages by June 24, 2019 . The internet platform YouTube had not yet deleted all hateful comments under the Lohfelden video by August 2019, rejected some complaints, did not respond to others in time and allowed new hate comments.

Max Otte , a member of the CDU and the CDU-affiliated union of values , wrote on Twitter in June 2019 that the “#Mainstream” finally had a “new NSU affair” to rush against the “right-wing scene, whatever that is” . After violent protests, he deleted his tweet. Based on this comment, the Union of Values ​​asked the CDU leadership to examine Otte's exclusion from the party. The AfD district chairman in the Dithmarschen district, Mario Reschke, doubted the murder of Lübcke, first compared his death with the alleged suicide of FDP politician Jürgen Möllemann (2003) and then spoke of “targeted character assassination”, after which “the person in question” “just did it dead “wake up. He rejected calls to delete the comment and resign from his mandate. On June 26th, Ralph Müller (AfD) remained seated in the Bavarian state parliament when commemorating Lübcke . On June 27, Wolfgang Gedeon (AfD) called right-wing extremist terror a "bird shit" compared to Islamist and left-wing extremist terror in Germany. Other AfD representatives defended the incidents.

Participants in a Pegida rally in Dresden expressed indifferent to approving of Lübcke's murder to journalists from the ARD magazine Kontraste . Individual comments were: Compared to the left-wing extremist danger, a murder is "every two or three years, for whatever reasons of hatred, relatively normal"; "That will soon be a human reaction"; "Yes, as it is called into the forest, it echoes out again"; "You have to thank Ms. Merkel about Lübcke here."

On June 5, 2019, when the main suspect was still unknown, the lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz received a threatening letter by fax with the analogous statement: “We killed Walter Lübcke. Soon it's your turn! ”Like five earlier threats of this kind, the letter was signed with NSU 2.0 , among others .

On June 18, 2019, the local politicians Henriette Reker and Andreas Hollstein , who had survived right-wing extremist attacks on themselves, received identical emails from an anonymous blackmailer. He demanded 100 million euros in bitcoins and threatened that otherwise she and other politicians would be "executed". With Lübcke a "phase of imminent cleansing" had been initiated. He concluded with the Hitler salute .

On June 28, 2019, strangers in Berlin-Mitte wrote the inflammatory slogan "Lübcke has paid, Merkel not yet" on a construction site tarpaulin. The state security is investigating. On June 29th, strangers sent the SPD politician Martin Dulig the deceptively real replica of an assault rifle by post. This has been widely understood as a symbolic death threat because of Dulig's commitment to refugees. Neo-Nazis also attacked Dulig's son. The right-wing extremist group Nordkreuz from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania wanted to order body bags and quicklime for attacks on political opponents. Prominent refugee helpers were denounced and threatened on a website until the Berlin State Criminal Police Office blocked the site.

On June 28, 2019, a video of "Combat 18" that was classified as real appeared on the Internet. In it, a person wearing a balaclava, gloves and dark clothing denies Ernst's contact with the group. Media reports are wrong. The research platform Exif identified the hooded speaker as a well-known right-wing extremist from Dortmund. Accordingly, it is a pen pal of the NSU terrorist Beate Zschäpe , who was convicted in 2007 of a robbery on a Tunisian. From July 2019, several journalists who researched the Lübcke murder case and the right-wing extremist scene received anonymous threatening letters with white baking powder. It was suspected that Combat 18 sent these letters.

Siemens boss Joe Kaeser had publicly positioned himself for the sea rescue of refugees and against racist statements by the AfD politician Alice Weidel . In July 2019 he received a death threat by email: He would be "the next Lübcke". The sender address was "[e-mail]" and was already known to the authorities from another case.

On July 22, 2019, the eighth anniversary of the right-wing extremist mass murder by Anders Breivik in Norway, the German right-wing extremist Roland K. targeted a dark-skinned refugee from Eritrea in Wächtersbach and seriously injured him. Hate comments linked this act with the murder of Lübcke and threatened further such acts, for example posts like "after all the attacks by migrants, people are resorting to vigilante justice". That is why experts from the security authorities warned: Rights attacked with the delusional assumption that Germany was suffering a “national death” by migrants, and increasingly to murderous violence. Any such act encourages imitators to do the same.

Senders who called themselves “Staatsstreichorchester” sent threatening e-mails nationwide, often referring to the murder of Lübcke. They wrote to Captain Carola Rackete , who was then active in sea rescue : she was now “on the death list” as long as she did not finally let the refugees “drown in the sea”. Hesse's Prime Minister Volker Bouffier threatened them that he was also on the "hit list": "Walter Lübcke was not the last politician, but the first."

In September 2019, Mike Mohring (parliamentary group and party leader of the CDU Thuringia) received a handwritten postcard with a death threat that alludes to Lübcke: He is "number two who will soon be shot in the head". The anonymous sender also berated him for his Christian attitude and described the Federal Republic as an injustice state. Therefore, the investigating State Criminal Police Office of Thuringia suspects a “Reich citizen” as the author. Mohring, the top candidate of the state CDU for the upcoming state elections, received increased police protection. In a current hour of the state parliament, CDU representatives praised a hotline for threatened local politicians. Thuringia's Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) again called for the sentence to be increased for defamation against local politicians. Political scientist Hans-Gerd Jaschke sees a new dimension of right-wing attacks, especially on local politicians. It is practically impossible to guarantee all personal protection.

On November 16, 2019, Oldenburg's police chief Johann Kühme received an email with the threat of death: He would be shot. "Not today, not tomorrow, just think of Lübcke". Kühme had previously publicly criticized members of the Bundestag for the AfD, who "refer to Muslim fellow citizens as headscarf girls and knife men or downplay the Nazi atrocities as bird shit in German history". The AfD had accused Kühme that his criticism violated his duty of neutrality as an official. State guards of the police created a risk analysis because of the mail and tightened their protective measures for Kühme. He affirmed that the death threat would not prevent him from "denouncing the derailments of individual AfD politicians".

Since the murder of Lübcke, it has become known that many local politicians in Germany have also been threatened by right-wing extremists since 2015. According to a survey by the magazine “Kommunal” among around 1000 German mayors, around 40% of local governments have already dealt with stalking, insults and threats, around 20% of them through hate mail. 7.8% of those surveyed (2017: ~ 6%) stated that they themselves or other members of the municipal council had been physically attacked. 40% of local councils and 20% of mayors reported insults, threats and violence in 2018; more than 1200 crimes against public officials were on record. At a reception in July 2019, 13 mayors reported such experiences to the Federal President. Leipzig's mayor Burkhard Jung emphasized that the growing right was spreading fear “systematically” and was strategically planning the restructuring of the state. This danger is still being neglected. The German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB) called for central reporting points for those affected and centralized criminal prosecution.

politics

After Lübcke's murder, many high-ranking politicians condemned the hateful comments made against him. On June 5, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called them “cynical, tasteless, abominable, in every way disgusting”. After the alleged perpetrator was arrested, he added: "Where the language is brutal, the crime is not far."

Federal Minister of Justice Katarina Barley welcomed the fact that the Federal Prosecutor had taken over the investigation. As a “lesson from the NSU series of murders ”, right-wing extremist motives for criminal offenses are also examined much earlier and more intensively. The state must protect civil society committed people more against intimidation and threats.

Horst Seehofer rated the murder as an "alarm signal": "Right-wing extremism is a considerable and serious threat to our free society."

The former CDU general secretary Peter Tauber said that the AfD "with the dissolution of language paved the way for the dissolution of violence". He mentioned by name: “ Erika Steinbach , once a woman with education and style, demonstrates this self-radicalization every day on Twitter. Like the Höckes, Ottes and Weidels , she is complicit in the death of Walter Lübcke through a language that disinhibits and leads to violence. ”In February 2019, Erika Steinbach Lübcke, who left the CDU and who was close to the AfD, had statements from 2015 on social media scandalized again, but leave death threats underneath until after the murder. Because of the right-wing extremist assassinations of state representatives, Tauber demanded that the forfeiture of fundamental rights under Article 18 of the Basic Law be applied for the first time and that anti-constitutional officials be dismissed in order to protect the state and its organs in the interests of “defensive democracy”. The CDU must draw a clear line to the right against supporters of a CDU-AfD coalition. He quoted the Weimar Chancellor Joseph Wirth , who, after the murder of Walther Rathenau in the Reichstag in 1922 , had said to the murderous man: “There stands the enemy who drips his poison into the wounds of a people. - There stands the enemy - and there is no doubt about it: This enemy stands on the right! "

The CDU chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer also made the AfD jointly responsible for the intellectual climate in which Lübcke was murdered. She permanently ruled out a collaboration with the AfD against AfD-affiliated CDU members: Anyone who imagines the murder victim will "never again come up with the idea that one can work with a party like the AfD as a Christian Democrat".

With reference to 226 right-wing extremist murders in the Federal Republic since 1970, ex-CDU general secretary Ruprecht Polenz called on his party, like Lübcke, to stand up for humanity and to delimit its conservatism from nationalist nationalism , for example with the slogan “freedom instead of fascism ”.

Michael Brand , spokesman for the CDU / CSU parliamentary group for human rights and a friend of Lübcke's, warned the Union parties to stand up for the stability of democracy “with a defensive stance and combative commitment” against the AfD and those sympathizing with right-wing extremist terror. The “drifting of parts of the middle of society to the margins” cannot be stopped by “following the slogans of the margins. In doing so, we are only strengthening them. ”The Democrats had not resisted the“ increasingly aggressive agitation against the open society and the democratic constitutional state ”. The "shaking up of the hitherto silent majority" is imperative: "The times for no longer recognizable attitude are finally over, especially after this murder."

Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble said in the Bundestag that Lübcke “publicly advocated what our open society is based on: for decency, tolerance and humanity.” He criticized “the abysses of malice and hatred in the midst of our society towards those who take responsibility in our country ", And described the agitation as a breeding ground for the violence:" Anyone who fertilizes this breeding ground is complicit. The last one should have understood that by now. ”He received sustained applause from all parliamentary groups except the AfD.

On June 27, Martin Hess (AfD) accused the other parties in the Bundestag of “misusing” the memory of Lübcke to incite against the AfD. He called for "verbal disarmament" and spoke of an "extermination campaign" against the AfD.

media

After Ernst's arrest, journalists compared the murder of Lübcke with the series of murders by the NSU (2000-2007), the assassination attempt on Henriette Reker (2015) and the attack on Andreas Hollstein (2017). Annette Ramelsberger ( SZ ) spoke of a "brown RAF " that is not tightly organized, but strikes wherever possible. A loud, inhuman sympathetic scene supports such acts. Their hatred seeps "from the fringes to the middle of society", including the police. Because of their long toleration of the riots in Chemnitz in 2018 and threatening letters from police officers signed with " NSU 2.0 ", right-wing violent criminals hardly see them as opponents, but rather as possible allies against the left.

Toralf Staud ( Deutschlandfunk ) demanded a more precise picture of right-wing terrorism from the security authorities. One or two perpetrators would have probably murdered Lübcke according to the concept of "leaderless resistance", as at the NSU without letters of confession in order to unsettle political opponents.

Nils Markwardt ( Republik .ch) contradicted Seehofer: Lübcke's execution-like, apparently planned murder does not mean a “new quality” in West German right-wing extremism. Its “bloody trail” (according to Daniel Köhler, 229 murders, 12 kidnappings, 174 armed robberies, 123 bomb attacks and 2173 arson attacks since 1971) are all too often suppressed. Whether and how exactly Lübcke's murderer followed the “leaderless resistance” cultivated by right-wing extremists remains to be determined. In any case, his act served the creeping chaos of the situation with the aim of a (civil) war. This is the core of neo-Nazi ideology, which functions almost exclusively through the constant production of images of the enemy and compensates for the lack of theory with the “compulsion to be permanently paramilitary”. As early as 1967, Theodor W. Adorno identified an urge for the end of the world in right-wing extremist ideology, which longed for civil war as a means to bring about an apocalyptic race war . The AfD had long since introduced this delusional idea into the social discourse with code words such as “ Umvolkung ” and “Resistance”. That is why it was not by chance that the suspect donated to them with the greeting "God bless you". Adorno also recognized that right-wing propaganda worked with relatively few, intellectually poor, but constantly repeated “tricks”. The inflammatory tricks of the AfD's “constant exposure to social media” are selective, resentment-laden picking up on news about the stigmatization of Muslims and refugees, calculated rhetorical taboos, equating all “ old parties ”, talk of the “Merkel system”, the brutalization of language and the constant complaint about the supposed victim role.

Christian Bangel ( Die Zeit ) feared the murder would intimidate committed people. Heralds are a widespread "verbal disrespect" and a closed hate system on Facebook as well as the dream of "reckoning" with democrats. Instead of further belittling racism and emphasizing alleged left discursive supremacy, "a feeling of urgency in the fight against the right-wing extremists and their right-wing populist foreground" must arise, which should not end again with the next scandal involving refugees.

Sascha Lobo (Spiegel) saw the murder as a work of "brown sleepers": Right-wing extremists who had long been ready to use violence received an impulse to act from the right-wing counter-public on the Internet. Often, like Ernst, they announced the crime a few months in advance. Erika Steinbach's tweet with the undated Lübckevideo could have acted as a “mark” of the victim. Björn Höcke's statements from 2018 that the time to talk was over, "fighting courage" is now necessary against the "traitors to the fatherland", could have encouraged the AfD donor Ernst to murder. The silence of politics, authorities and civil society interpreted such perpetrators as consent to implement the true "will of the people". The “downplaying ignorance of bourgeois politicians” and “verbal violence in social debates” are partly to blame, for example Horst Seehofer's statement from 2011: “We will defend ourselves against immigration into German social systems - down to the last cartridge.” One of these cartridges could have hit Lübcke.

Benjamin Konietzny ( n-tv ) similarly named the AfD strategy of "expanding the limits of what can be said" and cultivating enemy images like Lübcke as a contributing cause of the murder. The AfD has a problem of violence that shows up again and again in the language of its representatives and supporters. AfD politicians justified this either with the anger of the "people" or presented them as exceptions. Both are untrue in view of the murder of Lübcke. Because the AfD leadership does not face the problem, they are accused of hypocrisy.

On June 25, Martin Hohmann (AfD) said in the Bundestag, without the “mass influx of migrants Walter Lübcke would still be alive” for which Chancellor Angela Merkel was responsible. Christian Stöcker (Spiegel) commented that according to this strange logic, not murderers and their supporters, but distant political decision-makers, would be responsible for such murders - such as Konrad Adenauer (as recruiter for Turkish " guest workers ") for those of the NSU. The AfD is "constantly guilty of verbal and non-verbal aggression and incitement to which people like the confessed killer Walter Lübckes fully agree."

Martin Krauss ( Jüdische Allgemeine ) asked former Federal President Joachim Gauck for an "expanded tolerance to the right" (June 15, 2019): "Isn't the lack of prosecution of those who cheer a murder already 'tolerance to the right'?"

For Birgit Baumann ( Der Standard ), the murder is “an attack on democracy”, so the state must show severity. The AfD's agitation "brought a sharpness into the debate that allowed this hatred to flourish", and on the Internet it was "completely uninhibited [...] barrier after barrier, even the most vile thoughts have free rein".

Bettina Gaus ( taz ) criticized the government's reaction to treating the murder as an unforeseeable event and demanding more money for the police and the protection of the constitution. Right-wing extremist perpetrators were likely early on. Above all, however, NGOs such as the Amadeu Antonio Foundation , which have far fewer resources than state authorities, have collected reliable information on their environment .

Andrea Röpke feared in the ARD that the murder could be "a dam break for the scene". "We really have 50 crimes from the right, statistically speaking, a day in Germany and so few arguments about them, so little clarification, so little sensitivity to this topic."

Georg Mascolo (SZ) asked the investigators to answer questions about the perpetrators: "Why no one stopped him, why no one noticed that a right-wing extremist with a multiple criminal record with a pronounced propensity for violence on the Internet could threaten and threaten without anyone intervening." He pointed out the hate comments under the Lohfelden video, which continued even after the murder. The judiciary never punished such crimes on the net with imprisonment, so that virtual agitators could bet on getting away. In addition, the Internet companies have not taken responsibility for the content of their platforms for far too long. Opponents of right-wing slogans had also rejected the Network Enforcement Act as a censorship law. The German judiciary does not even see the gallows and direct calls for murder as a concrete threat to politicians as long as there is no information on the scene and time of the crime. The hazard potential of hate mail must be reclassified, as they could have consequences that are far away in terms of space and time. In contrast, the existing laws are to be applied consistently and quickly with immediate effect.

Claudius Seidl (FAZ) recalled that political murders or attempted murder are only judged as a heroic act or act of terrorism in historical retrospect. At the moment of the act, the perpetrator can only invoke a “higher morality” and “paranoid reason” and place them above applicable laws. In the Lübckes case, the "bourgeois actor" Alexander Gauland (AfD) provided this paranoid legitimation: He described Angela Merkel as a "Chancellor-dictator" and her policy as an "attempt to gradually replace the German people" with migrants from all over the world. The perpetrator could only understand this as an invitation to “resist”.

Margarete Stokowski (Spiegel) criticizes the language used by politicians and the media for murder. The statement that Lübcke had to die because of his work for the rights of refugees shows a typical wrong thought pattern: Because Lübcke did not die of his political views, but through the weapon of a right-wing extremist. These formulations are part of a German tradition of suppressing hatred and not allowing grief over the many victims of right-wing extremist violence in Germany. For example, TV stations prefer to invite AfD politicians to panel discussions instead of giving the valuable airtime to those who suffered daily from racism and right-wing extremism in this country. The media should report more on how those affected experience the "NSU 2.0" threatening letters from police officers to a lawyer of Turkish origin, the non-disclosure of NSU files, the ordering of body bags by Nordkreuz members and statements by Hans-Georg Maaßen, and how in the face of these cases they could trust the security authorities. Misanthropic statements by right-wing populists and right-wing extremists in Germany have long been "talkable" but have not been taken into account. Listening to those affected can make that visible.

Civil society organizations

The Democracy Center of the Philipps University of Marburg pointed to the increase in threats of violence since the refugee crisis from 2015, for example against the mayor and against the NSU victim lawyer Seda Başay-Yıldız . There is enough potential for violence in this for political murder. In Lübcke's case, “unfortunately someone may have carried out such threats”.

The chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, said that this murder case should “alarm all democrats” and show “in a terrifying way that the dangers posed by right-wing networks, right-wing populism and right-wing terror should not be underestimated”.

The International Auschwitz Committee called for the murder of all German state institutions to consistently crack down the right scene and to make findings on right-wing extremist groups and individuals in public. Holocaust survivors asked whether the massive right-wing hate and violence potential in Germany had not been played down and underestimated for far too long. The democratic forces should not release the AfD from their responsibility for the aggression process. One expects the "bite of democracy" announced by Federal Interior Minister Seehofer from all Germans.

After the neo-Nazi party 's rights a meeting at the Regional Council in Kassel on July 20, 2019 (anniversary of the assassination in 1944 announced), numerous initiatives Kassel reported counter-demonstrations at the same place. The city administration considered banning the neo-Nazi rally. The scene expert Olaf Sundermeyer highlighted the contacts of this "pseudo party" to Ernst and C18. The greatest possible provocation for media attention is the party's recipe for success.

On July 20, 2019 Party demonstrated in Kassel more than 10,000 people from 120 followers rights . Their elevator had been relocated from the city center in accordance with the requirements of the Kassel public order office.

science

The political scientist Gideon Botsch sees an "enormous" potential for right-wing terror in Germany, aided by the waning attention to right-wing street protests. The enemy images were also "marked" by AfD and Pegida.

Right-wing extremism researcher Matthias Quent sees the first right-wing extremist motivated murder of an incumbent politician since 1945 as a "turning point". The boundaries between right-wing populists and violent groups became more and more blurred. The AfD's successes also gave perpetrators the legitimacy of violence because, from their point of view, they only acted on the mood of the population. The rather mild judgments in the NSU trial did not have a deterrent effect, but rather gave the scene a boost.

For the political scientist Hajo Funke , parts of the AfD such as Björn Höcke or Andreas Kalbitz bear “clear joint responsibility for the murder”. This should no longer be played down and denied. Because of the risk of further right-wing terrorist attacks, there is now a “red alert”. The Hessian state "unfortunately failed miserably" because since 2016 there were indications that Ernst was a threat. Erika Steinbach is jointly responsible for the fact that Lübcke was “the victim of a smear campaign” because her postings from February 2019 made him a target of right-wing terror and she did not delete calls for murder from her Facebook page. In contrast, Steinbach found her posts “in no way problematic”.

The political scientist Armin Pfahl-Traughber pointed out that terrorists usually shoot their victims from a great distance. The shot from close range shows a "high degree of violence and cold-bloodedness" on the part of the murderer, related to the NSU series of murders and Uwe Behrendt's 1980 murder of rabbi Shlomo Lewin and his girlfriend Frieda Poeschke.

The political scientist Reiner Becker , head of the Marburg Democracy Center, contradicted the assumption that the authorities had underestimated the Hessian neo-Nazi scene. Comradeships like "Sturm 18" or "Free Resistance" are no longer influential in North Hesse. In addition to some of the Identitarian Movement and the NPD, there are barely visible, localizable right-wing extremist groups. Today neo-Nazis no longer need hierarchical organizations because they could hide in confusing mixed scenes and loose networks such as the preppers , Reich citizens and yellow vests . Social media, right-wing extremist concerts and martial arts allowed them to interact with like-minded people even without camaraderie. This explained the considerable increase in threats against local politicians, the Franco A. , NSU 2.0 cases and the problems the authorities had in recording the perpetrators. The cause is the now excessive disinhibition of public discourse promoted by the AfD since 2015, which has accustomed violent perpetrators to malice and agitation and leads them to believe that they are acting for a majority. This situation had encouraged former offenders, later inconspicuous perpetrators to renewed violence. They did not act in a completely isolated or strategic manner, but rather according to opportunity and habituation to the ever increasing brutality. They are difficult to find in time, for example through so-called network analyzes.

Measures of the countries

The LKA Hessen set up its own working group to investigate the hate crime that followed Lübcke's murder. Their extent was greater than initially assumed, so that the investigators expected thousands of criminal proceedings. Until then, hate crime had rarely been pursued online.

In July 2019, the Dresden public prosecutor initiated proceedings against unknown Pegida demonstrators for approving criminal offenses, possibly including sedition, who relativized and justified Lübcke's murder against reporters from ARD magazine Kontraste and vilified him as a “traitor”.

Bernhard Witthaut , head of the Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution, announced “targeted staff reinforcements” for his agency's research against hatred on the Internet.

In July 2019, the LKA Hessen set up a “special organizational structure” (BAO) with 140 investigators against right-wing extremist structures in the state. In the following months, the BAO arrested around 30 right-wing extremist offenders in more than 700 controls. During a longer-planned raid in December 2019 in twelve right-wing extremist apartments in seven locations in Hesse, the police found weapons, gunpowder, sulfuric acid, pyrotechnics, drugs and right-wing extremist devotional items. She arrested a man. The raid was explicitly intended as a direct reaction to the murder of Lübcke and was intended to maintain the pressure of persecution on the right-wing extremist scene in Hesse.

By August 12, 2019, the Hessian LKA initiated more than 100 proceedings on hateful comments on the Internet that were directly or indirectly related to the Lübcke murder case.

In September 2019, the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office set up a central office to combat Internet crime (ZIT). This secured hateful comments about Lübcke, examined their possible criminal liability and identified the authors. By June 2020, the ZIT and LKA experts identified 64 people, nine of them from Hesse, who are said to have spread Internet networks to Lübcke. On June 4, 2020, public prosecutors in twelve federal states raided and questioned 39 of these suspects. They are suspected of publicly soliciting, rewarding and approving criminal acts, sedition and denigration of the memory of the deceased.

The Hesse state continued with the votes of all political groups on 25 June 2020 committee of inquiry one, the possible failure of the security agencies to before the murder of Lübcke enlighten. The committee also wants to clarify who were those who knew about Lübcke's murder. In August 2020, Die Linke submitted evidence to Alexander S. and 24 other right-wing extremists from the region.

By the end of June 2020, the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime in Frankfurt am Main identified 60 authors of hundreds of criminal statements on the Lübckemord. The refusal of platform operators such as Twitter and Facebook to release user data made it difficult to find the authors. Criminal trials against some of them began in June. The 71-year-old pensioner Hermann R. had written in a Facebook group: “I hope he [Lübcke] slowly died. Nothing else is intended for genocide. ”More than 15,000 group members were able to read the hate mail. R. saw this in court as his legitimate free opinion and threatened a reporter. He had subscribed to local AfD and NPD groups on Facebook and saw the mobile phone video of Lübcke's appearance in Lohfelden. He confirmed that his opinion on Lübcke was “normal. He can't say that we should leave if it doesn't suit us. ”Instead of him, the judiciary should take action against politicians like Lübcke,“ who let illegal immigrants in here and insult us as Nazis ”. He was fined 300 euros and had to give up his computer. The 71-year-old pensioner Peter D. had written in the AfD-affiliated Facebook group “Mut zu Deutschland”: “You have to chase the fat man out of the country with clubs”; Lübcke should be "shot on the spot". This was charged as a criminal offense. According to Chief Public Prosecutor Benjamin Krause, the defendants included all age groups and professions, including some women. They all felt safe in the supposed anonymity of the Internet. Most did not realize that they were committing crimes that could fuel real violence. The main aim of the indictment was to get the authors out of anonymity and to make them understand the consequences of their hate speech.

Federal measures

As a result of the murder, Federal Interior Minister Seehofer wanted to equip the Office for the Protection of the Constitution with more staff, better technology and new surveillance powers, for example to smuggle spy software into servers, computers and smartphones of suspected target persons. However, the Ministry of Justice, led by the SPD, rejected a draft law by the Ministry of the Interior because it lacked the stronger parliamentary control of the protection of the constitution as stipulated in the coalition agreement.

In August 2019, the CDU member of the Bundestag Michael Brand called for internet companies such as Google and YouTube to be monitored more closely and to discuss their break-up. Konstantin von Notz , a member of the Green Parliament , also called for the federal government to take action against hateful comments on YouTube.

Because of the gun license for Markus H., Federal Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) demanded at the end of August 2019 that gun law be tightened: Membership in an extreme group or party should automatically be enough to refuse a gun license. It followed a proposal made by Hesse's interior minister in 2018, which had not received sufficient approval in the Federal Council.

As often requested and announced by the Federal Minister of the Interior at the end of June 2019, the right-wing extremist organization "Combat 18", including its German subgroup, was banned on January 23, 2020. Simultaneous raids in several federal states should secure evidence from their members. The announcement and the long deadline for the ban have been criticized for allowing the neo-Nazis to remove evidence and reorganize. The decisive factor for the ban was material on the organizational structure and active, militant anti-constitutionality of the group, which constitutional protection officials and anti-fascist researchers such as Exif had already provided in summer 2018.

Criminal trial

Prelude

On April 29, 2020, the Attorney General brought charges against Ernst for the murder of Walter Lübcke and attempted murder and assault on the Iraqi Ahmad E. in January 2016.

The start of the process on June 16, 2020 met with enormous public interest. Hundreds of journalists and spectators formed long queues in front of the courthouse. The North Hessian initiative "Open to Diversity" and the Interventionist Left Frankfurt announced accompanying campaigns. The former wanted to stand up for democratic values, the latter for "extensive clarification that reveals right-wing networks and uncovered all connections to the protection of the constitution and the NSU". Anna-Sophia Lang ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung / FAZ) also expected this clarification from the trial, but emphasized the ongoing social challenge: “To prevent hatred and agitation from turning into murder again”.

Only 19 journalists were allowed in the courtroom. In a second room, a maximum of 41 journalists were able to listen to the hearing without video transmission. They were not allowed to take technical devices such as notebooks and smartphones into either of the two rooms. The German Union of Journalists (DJU) criticized these restrictions as unreasonable and called for video broadcasting and corresponding legal reform.

Lübcke's relatives wanted to participate in the process as co-plaintiffs despite severe emotional stress. Through their lawyers Holger Matt and Dirk Metz they announced: They wanted to contribute to the investigation and condemnation of the crime, to stand up for Lübcke's lifelong Christian and social convictions, his commitment to the rule of law, against hatred and violence and for the defense of democracy: “The The family wants to show that you cannot fall silent. That you have to raise your voice. ”According to his lawyer Mustafa Kaplan, Ernst initially wanted to remain silent during the trial. The lawyer of the joint plaintiff Ahmed I expected that Markus H. and Ernst would incriminate each other because of his contradicting confession versions.

Taking evidence on the murder of Lübcke

The main hearing began on June 16, 2020 before the responsible State Security Senate at the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court under high security precautions. At the beginning, Chief Public Prosecutor Dieter Killmer read out the indictment: Ernst and H. were already united in their fear of " foreign infiltration " at the 2015 citizens' meeting in Lohfelden and had openly shown their anger at Lübcke. Since then, Ernst has projected his xenophobia onto Lübcke. In 2016, he decided to punish Lübcke for his stance on refugee policy and began to spy on his living conditions. Already in 2017 and 2018 he drove to Lübcke's house with the murder weapon. With the murder, he wanted to set a "publicly noticed signal" against the state order that he rejected. Ernst's motive was a "racism and xenophobia based on ethnic-nationalistic attitude". Ultimately, he feared the "extermination of the Germans". He shot Lübcke from close range on June 1, 2019 at 11:30 p.m. at the latest.

On June 17, 2020, the presiding judge Thomas Sagebiel had a video recording of Ernst's first confession shown. At that time he had expressly renounced a lawyer, agreed to the recording after an informal conversation with the investigators and then made a kind of life confession for about four hours. In it he had described how he wanted to get out of the right-wing extremist scene after his last prison sentence in 2009 in order to lead “a normal life” and to be there for his children. The topic of "foreign infiltration and foreigner crime" was constantly present to him, especially since H. became his close friend and shooting coach. Since Lübcke's testimony in Lohfelden he had hated him, researched him and developed a killing plan. He thought that as a gun owner he could do something. Unlike on his previous visits to Istha, he was determined to act on the night of June 2, 2019. He held on to his head and pulled the trigger once without touching Lübcke. He didn't tell anyone about it and just said to his wife: "I was gone."

On July 3, 2020, Ernst described his years in the Kassel neo-Nazi scene again. He confirmed that he had renounced it in 2010 because the racism of his comrades had "simply become too extreme" for him; nevertheless he was "patriotic". He had known many cadres of the North Hessian Nazi scene and once had written contact with the right-wing terrorist Karl-Heinz Hoffmann . At that time, Markus H. was suspected of being an undercover agent for the protection of the constitution or other state security officers in the right-wing extremist scene. He himself had suspected this too, since H. had often incited the scene. Senior Public Prosecutor Dieter Killmer confronted Ernst with the results of the investigation: After that, he had already spied on political opponents as an active neo-Nazi, behaved conspiratorially before the crime and was alone in front of Lübcke's house with a thermal imaging camera the day before the murder. Therefore, the murder seems like "everything that you thought of years before as a blueprint". It is not believable that Ernst put this effort into just "rubbing off" Lübcke. Ernst's statement from February 2020 that Markus H. was the real driver of his actions, they only wanted to hit Lübcke and H. only accidentally fired the fatal shot, do not convince him. He assumes that Ernst committed a political assassination alone and as "the almost perfect crime". Ernst stated that he had collected data about his opponents for the first time in juvenile detention and had "negative experiences" with foreigners there. In order to be able to take revenge and to process what he had experienced, he took notes and later, with other neo-Nazis such as Markus H., collected information about people who they counted as anti-fascists. Ultimately, they would never have implemented “fantasies” about how this data was handled. Perhaps with Walter Lübcke he had fallen back into “certain habits” from the “ anti-anti- fascist era”. But he never planned a “perfect crime”, and he did not aim for Lübcke's death.

On July 27, 2020, Ernst's lawyer Frank Hannig requested that the investigators have to investigate a break-in into the Kassel regional council on July 20, 2020. Files on the wind power companies of the Lübcke sons may have been stolen there. Hannig assumed without any evidence that Lübcke and his sons might have something to hide and that Lübcke could have been murdered for completely different reasons. Judge Sagebiel stated that Hannig's applications were "all whirled nonsense. Nobody has any chance of success. You have no reasonable connection to the case. ”He feared that Hannig Ernst was no longer defending properly. Hannig's colleague Mustafa Kaplan distanced himself from him. The applications were intended to suggest "crooked business" of Lübcke and his relatives: "My client is not interested in Mr. Lübcke and his sons being pelted with dirt." Hannig admitted that he had not discussed the applications with Ernst and withdrew them : He doesn't want to harm his client. But Ernst declared that his trust in Hannig had been permanently destroyed and demanded that he be released. The judge asked Kaplan to contact another defense attorney who could replace Hannig.

On July 28, 2020, Hannig was dismissed as Ernst's defender. Jan-Hendrik Lübcke described that he had found his father sitting on the terrace of the house, leaning his head against it and opening his mouth. Hours later the police reported that the projectile had been found. The family will never cope with the act. Nevertheless, they continued to live in the house in Istha to show “that we continue to stand behind our father, both privately and professionally.” Forensic doctor Reinhard Dettmeyer explained that the autopsy did not find any injuries on Lübcke's body that would indicate a fight . The fatal shot was fired at head height from a distance of 30 to a maximum of 200 centimeters. H's defense attorney emphasized that both statements speak against an argument and accidental shot, as Ernst had claimed in his second version of the confession. The shot was too precise for that, and after a dispute, Lübcke would have been found in a different position.

On August 5, 2020, Mustafa Kaplan read a statement by Ernst. He described his childhood as a fear of the alcoholic, violent father. He took over his hatred of foreigners from him and, to please him, had started “rushing against foreigners” since he started school. While in custody he radicalized himself politically and then found a home in the Kassel neo-Nazi scene. His topics were foreign infiltration, the extinction of Germans and the violence against Germans by foreigners, but he never shared the racial politics of National Socialism . Because of hostility towards his wife of Russian descent, he withdrew. In 2014 he came into contact with H. again, went on survival hikes, target practice, trips to the Czech Republic and France and attended demonstrations in Chemnitz, Erfurt and Kassel. H. had become his mentor, illegally produced weapons and ammunition and impressed on him that the Germans had to arm themselves because the political situation was heading towards civil war. He was emotionally dependent on H. Today he knows that H. "manipulated, radicalized and incited" him. H. brought a target with Angela Merkel's likeness to target practice and announced a target with Lübcke's profile. H. also brought in the idea of ​​"paying a visit" to Lübcke. In mid-May 2019 they would have agreed on this plan for the fair weekend on June 1st. In the night of the crime, they would both have approached Lübcke. He, Ernst, pointed the cocked revolver at him. Then H. called: “Lübcke, time to emigrate!” Lübcke straightened up; at that moment he pulled the trigger. Then he immediately asked H. to flee. When asked by the judge, he emphasized: They wanted to intimidate Lübcke and fire a warning shot. Reports of this raid were to make waves through the gun. He himself decided to shoot Lübcke.

Before that, Ernst turned directly to Lübcke's wife and sons who were present: He knew that the joint act was “inexcusable”, “wrong, cowardly and cruel”. I'm sorry. Nobody should die because they have a different opinion, religion or origin. He takes responsibility for Lübcke's death and wants to answer all the family's questions. His first version of the confession was advised by his first lawyer, Dirk Waldschmidt, and his second by Frank Hannig. With this, Hannig H. wanted to make a statement. He had nothing to do with the knife attack on the Iraqi Ahmad E. He asked the judge to be allowed to participate in a dropout program for right-wing extremists. He also stated that the separation from his wife and children was a great burden on him; his daughter doesn't want any more contact with him.

Only when asked by the court did Ernst move away from his statement that he and H. had only wanted to fire a "warning shot", and admitted an appointment with H. to target Lübcke. H. said to him in a general way: “If he thinks stupid, then you shoot.” Lübcke's relatives said: It was unbearable for them that Ernst made his confession “with overflowing explanations about a difficult childhood” and the radicalization by the co-defendant H. connect, "as if it was normal that these circumstances lead to such a terrible act". The victim is not serious, but Lübcke and his entire family. They emphasized about their lawyer Holger Matt: Ernst's confession shows long-term planning of the act. They also wanted to know the exact course of "what happened on the night of June 1st to 2nd, 2019 and how it came about".

On August 27, 2020 Daniel Muth, the head of the "Lienicke" special commission, explained that the investigators had only found Ernst with the flake on Lübcke's shirt, through Ernst's statements then found H. as a helper or accomplice. No footprints were found on the route to Lübcke's house indicated by Ernst. He would have overcome several obstacles there and stepped into the full glow of a construction site spotlight, Lübcke should then have seen H's approach. Therefore Muth doubted H's involvement.

Ernst stated that Frank Hannig had induced him to name H. as the shooter. The court then called Hannig as a witness. On September 22, 2020, Hannig almost completely refused to give a statement. The public prosecutor's office in Kassel therefore examined a preliminary investigation into inciting false suspicion against him.

On October 22, 2020, the neo-Nazi Alexander S. claimed that he broke with his past in 2014. In contradiction to this, he then testified that he had also attended political events such as the AfD demonstrations in Erfurt and Chemnitz in autumn 2018 with H. and Jonas S., a former member of the FKSE leadership. There he came into contact with Ernst. In his Threema chats with him, however, it was only about a component for a study project that Ernst should turn for him. After learning of the murder suspicion against Ernst, he deleted the chat because of the emotional stress. The chats with H., which were also deleted, also dealt with political and social issues; He does not remember the specific content and H's attitude. He called National Socialism “this earlier time”, anti-Semitism “great rejection” and the right-wing extremist marches he was involved in “right”. During his phone call with H. a few hours before Lübcke's murder, they only agreed to visit a flea market together the next day. S. stayed in contact with H. even after the murder and continued to meet with him. His statement appeared to observers as a deliberate concealment of his continued right-wing extremist stance.

One witness testified that she saw a pickup truck parked not far from Lübcke's house at around 11 p.m. on May 31. A man with a baseball cap and a backpack got out. An expert from the LKA Hessen testified that a picture of Lübcke's house found on Ernst's thermal imaging camera was taken on June 1, 2019 at 1:02 a.m., a good 20 hours before the murder. Accordingly, Ernst had already been there the night before the crime to spy on Lübcke's house.

On November 5, 2020, Ernst described his school career: Even as a primary school student, his alcoholic father taught him an “irrepressible hatred of foreigners” and forbade him to play with “Kanaken”. After moving to Taunusstein and building his own home there, he felt put back and alone. In the new school, students with a migration background "harassed" him. There had been fights. He was then asked about the motives for his previous crimes. After much deliberation, he explained the pipe bomb attack on a refugee accommodation with his conviction: “All foreigners are bad and they just have to go.” He avoided the word racism and instead cited negative youth experiences: his alcoholic father was “against foreigners”. Because of brawls with young people of Turkish origin, he had "not had a good opinion" of migrants. As an apprentice, he was already interested in the right-wing extremist "Republicans" and was "very negative about foreigners". He felt sexually harassed by the victim of his knife attack in Wiesbaden main station. When the pipe bomb attack in Hohenstein, he was upset because of the “Wiesbaden thing” and the arrival of many refugees in Germany. A friendship with a man of Turkish descent was broken because he had reported him to the police. While in custody, he felt threatened by fellow prisoners with a migration background. His cell neighbor wanted to leave him alone in exchange for sexual favors and money. The only way out he saw was to "break free". With the leg of a metal chair from his cell, he attacked and seriously injured his cell neighbor, as he admitted when asked. He radicalized himself while in custody and then joined the neo-Nazi scene. He also wanted to "stand up for my country" with violence in the Kassel neo-Nazi scene. When asked about his family, daughter and friends who had broken off contact with him, he became emotional: His political attitudes always contradicted what was really important to him in life. He doesn't know "how I can make amends for what I did to Mr. Lübcke, what I did to the family" and "find every word I say about it as hypocritical."

On November 16, 2020, Lübcke's widow Irmgard Braun-Lübcke reported on the day of the murder. She and her husband were delighted that their grandchild was staying with them for the first time. In the best weather, her husband and a friend stayed in front of the house, then on the terrace. At around 10:30 p.m., she said goodbye and went to see the grandchild. Her husband went to the garden chair next to the table on the terrace. After that she slept and heard nothing until her son woke her, who had found the father sitting lifeless in the chair. She thought of a heart attack and only found out about the projectile in her husband's head in the hospital. She described him as a cheerful person who always enjoyed working, but was also looking forward to his upcoming retirement. He finally wanted to spend more time with his family. A few weeks later, it would have been her 40th wedding anniversary. The “nasty, perfidious murder” took away his grandfather's existence and destroyed the lives of his relatives. She doesn't know how to ever find her way back to life. For her husband with his basic Christian attitude, help for refugees was a matter of course. It struck him that only a contextless sentence of his appeal to human solidarity in Lohfelden was spread in order to make him an enemy. He did not feel threatened and was never afraid, only worried about attacks on his family. Because words become deeds, H. is complicit in the murder. His behavior to follow the process in silence, sometimes amused, sometimes grinning maliciously, is very hurtful for all victims' relatives. Then she asked her questions about the course of the crime: “Did my husband look the defendant Markus H. in the face? Has he seen Stephan Ernst? What has really been said? Was there another conversation? Could he still go away? Why couldn't he defend himself? How was the confrontation? How, when was it touched? I want this full truth, it would help us to come to terms with it all. ”Ernst's various confessions would have obscured all of this. His defense attorney then emphasized that Ernst's promise to answer the questions was still valid. Then she turned to him directly: “Tell us the truth! Only that can still help us. My husband, papa, and grandpa are never coming back. If you had experienced the situation yourself, I don't know what you wanted to know. "

The forensic psychiatrist Norbert Leygraf interviewed Ernst for a total of nine hours in January 2020 and presented a 129-page report on his condition. Ernst had initially refused the investigation and then only wanted to be questioned in the presence of his then lawyer Frank Hannig; Leygraf had refused. On November 19, 2020, the expert presented his result: Ernst had avoided open discussions with him as well as in court and tried “to reveal as little as possible with as many words as possible”. Although he may have appropriated his right-wing xenophobia as a youth in order to divert attention from his own failure, this attitude is now "deeply ingrained". Earlier experts and judges had already noticed "clear antisocial behavior" in him. It is incomprehensible that he should have suffered from a borderline disorder during his pipe bomb attack. There are no indications of a mental illness, at best of non-pathological “schizoid personality traits”: Seriously appears cool on the outside, but is on the inside “sensitive to personal insults and actual or supposed injustice”. In addition, he fantasizes about "counter-actions" for a long time. His life ran on "two tracks", an integrated bourgeois existence with house, family and full-time job and a member of the violent neo-Nazi scene in Kassel who committed further crimes. Ernsts alleged turning away from right-wing extremist ideas between 2009 and 2014 was not credible and at best was short-term. Leygraf proved with earlier therapy documents that Ernst H. had met again in 2011. Since then, he has felt more comfortable with the AfD than in his Nazi comradeship, but still armed himself extensively illegally for an allegedly impending civil war. In relation to the two offenses accused of him he was fully guilty. In his version of the confession there is no evidence that Lübcke's murder was caused by “external psychosocial factors” or “facilitating conflicts”. The deed is an expression of Ernst's personality and convictions. A “fundamental and stable change” is not evident. Ernst's expression of remorse in the first confession seems “not very authentic” and “almost learned by heart”: his “little affective emotion” contradicts the “drama of his words”. A “fundamental about-face” can hardly be explained psychiatrically with such strongly anchored convictions. Ernst's contact with a dropout program does not change this. In court he showed emotion especially when he described the acts of Islamists as “key experiences” of his radicalization. In his report on the course of the crime, on the other hand, he appeared composed and rather presented feelings in order to give the long-planned crime an "affective note". Leygraf saw a persistent “tendency to commit serious crimes” in Ernst and thus made it possible for him to be detained after a possible prison sentence.

On December 3, 2020, Ernst first repeated that his murder of Lübcke was a "terrible" act that could not be repaired. He wanted to put aside the right-wing extremist ideology with the help of a state dropout program and counter what this act has certainly triggered in right-wing extremist circles. Then he read out prepared answers to the questions Irmgard Braun-Lübcke had asked him:

• Lübcke looked Markus H. in the face three times when he stepped onto the terrace, spoke to him and replied that they should go. Lübcke also looked at Ernst when he came out on the terrace and pointed the gun at him.
• There was an exchange of words: H. called “Time to emigrate”, Lübcke called “Get out of here!” And he, Ernst, called: “I go to work every day for someone like you”.
• Lübcke screamed and wanted to sit up, but had no more chance to go away or to fight back. He, Ernst, pushed Lübcke into the garden chair and said his sentence.
• They would have approached the terrace from different directions, H. from the front, Ernst from the side, and carried out the deed quickly as agreed. H. last called "Go, get away!"

Irmgard Braun-Lübcke asked Ernst again to answer further questions “precisely and unambiguously”: “We want the full truth as it really was.” Ernst then answered 24 questions from victim lawyer Holger Matt about planning the crime; when, how often and with whom he was at the crime scene; how often he saw Lübcke sitting on the terrace; what he had discussed with H. and which of his defense lawyers he had told which version of the crime. Then Irmgard Braun-Lübcke asked again whether her husband really looked H. in the face at last. Ernst answered in the affirmative.

When asked how often he was on the Lübckes' property, alone or with a companion, armed or unarmed, Ernst had repeatedly given various information. This time he added that in 2018 he and H. had climbed a hill together in Istha and had seen Lübcke in conversation with another person. He wanted to go back then, H. held him back. The victim's lawyer suspected that the second person was Lübcke's eldest son Christoph, who lived with his wife next to his parents' house and had once seen two strangers nearby. Ernst couldn't remember his face, but he could remember that both people had stood near a reddish new building. Christoph Lübcke confirmed that his house looked like this and that it had just been finished at the time. Accordingly, Ernst and H. Lübckes had explored the property together. This was considered a strong indication of her fixation on Lübcke and the crime scene.

According to trial observers, Ernst had been ready to answer all questions since August 2020, but used this primarily to confirm his third version of the confession and to repeat what he knew. With precise inquiries he produced new contradictions in some details, for example that he owned a weapon registered on H. continuously or only temporarily, had paid for beer at a petrol station with an EC card or in cash; maybe he meant another gas station. The beer was intended for the meeting with H. in April 2019, when they decided to kill Lübcke. Judge Sagebiel commented: Ernst repeatedly offers “new scraps of memory adapted to the situation”. The court will try to clarify contradictions and ambiguities in Ernst's statements. That is why the process will probably last until January 2021.

Taking of evidence on Markus H.

Markus H. was charged with complicity in the murder of Lübcke and violations of the gun law. According to the indictment, he promoted Ernst's murder attempt through joint target practice in forests and rifle clubs. Through the weapons training and their joint visits to right-wing extremist events, he had reinforced Ernst's decision to kill Lübcke, and gave him encouragement and security for the act. By July 2016 at the latest, he believed that Ernst could murder a politician for right-wing extremist motives, and accepted this with approval. But he was not in the know about the specific attack plans against Lübcke and was not there on the night of the crime on Lübcke's terrace.

Ernst's changing versions of confession made the allegation of aiding and abetting murder against H. implausible. On October 1, 2020, the court released H. from pre-trial detention because he did not have sufficient evidence to suspect that he was an accessory to murder. Although H. and Ernst were friends, shared the same right-wing extremist sentiment and completed joint target practice. However, it has not been proven that H. Lübcke's murder was possible, nor that he had accepted aiding and abetting it.

The proceedings against H. for possible complicity in murder continued. The Federal Prosecutor wanted to appeal against his release from prison. The BKA continues to investigate H. on suspicion of terrorist financing and is examining his alleged arms and ammunition deals. The investigators gave up their initial suspicion that H. had made a cartridge with low penetration power to prevent a visible exit wound and to camouflage Lübcke's cause of death for longer. The Hesse police further classify him as a “threat” who, according to the BKA definition, could commit “politically motivated crimes of considerable importance” at any time.

Because Frank Hannig had described the annulment of H.'s arrest warrant in an email to the victim's family as a "wrong decision by the Higher Regional Court", victim attorney Holger Matt applied on November 16, 2020 to confiscate Hannig's hand files. He suspected it contained evidence of H's complicity in the murder. Ernst's defense attorney joined in and also requested that Hannig's mobile phone and tablet be confiscated to secure such documents. At the end of November 2020, the court initially rejected the seizure of Hannig's reference file because there were no indications that it contained expressions from Ernst that were significant for the judgment. Lübcke's relatives were horrified and rated the refusal as a refusal to explain H's possible involvement. They suspected that the court was trying to cover up H's release from prison; For months it had been remarkably friendly towards H. and his defense lawyers. Thereupon, on December 1, 2020, the court had Hannig's hand files seized on Ernst in order to clarify how Ernst's various confessions came about, which version of the confession applied, how the murder actually took place and what role H. played in it. After reviewing the files, the court wanted to decide which parts could be confiscated.

On December 3, 2020, BGH arrest judge Marc Wenske testified that H. had received his arrest warrant on June 27, 2019 with unusual "coldness and serenity" and asked with legal adept why he was "only because of aiding and abetting murder" but not because of " Membership in a terrorist organization ”. He must have known that this would have required at least three people. From this, the prosecution and the co-plaintiff concluded that H. was aware of his complicity and that he knew other possible accomplices. According to H's defense attorney, H's question was not unreasonable because he knew about the investigation against the arms dealer Elmar J. Then parts of Hannig's seized files were presented. Apparently there were older notes in it, according to which Ernst acted alone, and more recent ones in which he named H. as an accomplice. Only some of the notes were dated. On a note that Ernst blamed the fatal shot on H., Hannig had noted: "He's kidding us". Accordingly, Ernst himself, not Hannig, invented the version that H. Lübcke had "accidentally" shot. Judge Sagebiel emphasized that one could "tweak" a hand file, especially since Hannig was being investigated. Therefore, the file has only "very little evidential value". Irmgard Braun-Lübcke then asked Ernst whether other people besides himself and H. were involved in the planning of the murder. He denied this.

During the main hearing, H. did not comment, but he was always noticed by his grin at certain statements. His facial expressions were perceived as sneaky, presumptuous, arrogant and mocking. Chief Public Prosecutor Dieter Killmer once asked him to refrain from this obvious ridicule.

Taking evidence on the attack on Ahmed I.

From October 2020, evidence regarding the attack on the Iraqi Ahmed I took place on January 6, 2016. A cyclist had inflicted a life-threatening stab wound on his back from behind, which left him with permanent consequential damage. An expert in DNA analyzes had secured incomplete DNA samples from the knife found at Ernst's premises, of which he was able to assign 16 features to the victim. A special feature often occurs in Iraq, but very rarely in Germany. On October 20, a forensic doctor who examined Ahmed I. in 2016 after his operation testified that the stab was carried out with considerable force and, because of the canal, most likely with a knife. The nine-centimeter-long knife found at Ernst's place matches the wound, but cannot be clearly identified as a murder weapon. An LKA official who had compared three Ernst bicycles with the blurry photographs of the perpetrators on a surveillance camera testified: One of the bicycles could be seen on them. However, it cannot be ruled out that it was just a similar bike.

On October 27, 2020, the Iraqi Ahmed I reported his story to some of the media as a joint plaintiff. He wanted to become a musician, had to flee his hometown of Mosul from the terrorist organization Islamic State , found asylum in Germany in October 2015 and was housed with 800 refugees in Lohfelden. On the evening of January 6, 2016, he was ambushed from behind and stabbed while fetching cigarettes. The stab wound injured a thoracic vertebra, the skin of the spinal cord, the spinal cord, severed two nerve cords and barely missed an important artery. The attack destroyed his life. He was in constant pain, had to take pills every day, barely felt his legs, slept poorly and has been unable to work since then. He was interrogated for the first time in the hospital and suspected a Nazi as the perpetrator, as he otherwise knew no Germans. However, the police and the authorities did not take him seriously and supported him, but rather scared him. He never heard from the investigators and reported himself to the authorities after Ernst's arrest. Since then, swastika graffiti has appeared in his apartment. Although he does not want to be intimidated by the Nazis, he reckons with further devious attacks. He only wanted to decide after the trial whether he would stay in Germany. He hoped that this would uncover all the background to the fact.

After Ernst's arrest, Ahmed I. turned to the investigators himself so that his case was re-examined. Although he suspected Nazi perpetrators and the Nazis strongly mobilized against migrants at the time, the investigators first looked for the attacker among his roommates and imprisoned one of them. His lawyer Alexander Hoffmann, who had already represented co-plaintiffs in the NSU trial, criticized this and pointed out that the investigators could have found the knife with clearer DNA features at Ernst and thus prevented the murder of Lübcke.

Hoffmann emphasized that Ahmed I still suffered physically and mentally from the consequences of the injury and was convinced of Ernst's perpetration. A conviction is extremely important for him in order to be able to conclude the attack. He was not seen as a victim of racist violence for years. The fact that the police did not take his references to Nazi perpetrators seriously is an example of institutional racism. He considers all of Ernst's statements about his repentance and turning away from his racist, National Socialist attitude to be "purely functional and cheeky lied". However, the court signaled that it would acquit Ernst from the knife attack on Ahmed I. for lack of evidence.

Closing speeches

On January 21, 2021 Ernst's defenders made their pleadings. Jörg Hardies rejected the accusation of the attempted murder of Ahmed I as completely unfounded: the Federal Prosecutor had constructed this accusation to justify preventive detention against Ernst. Mustafa Kaplan denied that Ernst had shot Lübcke out of treachery and low motives: Lübcke was defenseless sitting in the garden chair, but was not innocent due to the threat of a weapon. Ernst did not commit the act for his own benefit, but mistakenly believed that he was "acting in the general interest". His childhood was a "hell of violence, fear and loneliness". He took over his hatred of foreigners from his father and kept it in order to gain paternal recognition. This does not excuse anything, but seriously explains "deficits and breaks and the violence that emanates from it". He lived in a right-wing populist bubble, only surrounded by like-minded people. For Ernst, Lübcke was “not a nameless representative of the state”, but was specifically responsible for what he saw as a failed refugee policy. He planned and carried out the crime together with Markus H., but then, unlike H., carried out extensive "educational work" on the background of the crime: "One of them speaks, answers questions and shows remorse. The other is silent, grinning and provoking. "Ernst made a full confession of remorse, answered all the questions posed by the prosecution and the Lübcke family and also partially or wholly released four defense lawyers from their duty of confidentiality:" More is not possible. "Ernst's promise, Answering all questions from the victims' relatives is lifelong. Kaplan demanded a “proportionate prison sentence” for manslaughter, not murder. Ernst had nothing to do with the knife attack on Ahmed I. and should be acquitted of the charge of attempted murder. Ahmed I's attorney called Kaplan's request "a cheek" because Ernst had refused to answer any inquiries from the private prosecutor's attorneys and the court about the crime.

On January 26, 2021, H.'s lawyers Björn Clemens and Nicole Schneider held a total of five-hour pleadings. Both are active right-wing radicals and rejected the murder accessory charges against H. from the start as a “political trial” against a “prejudiced” client. They emphasized that Ernst's various statements about the course of the crime were not credible; he had "convicted himself of the lie" several times and tried to shift the blame for his wrongdoing on to others. His right-wing extremist worldview is so ground that H. could not have radicalized him at all. H. did not know anything about Ernst's concrete plan of the crime and could therefore neither support nor support it. He also did not know that a deactivated machine gun he had bought had not been properly rendered unusable. Unlike Ernst, H. will not show any remorse because he has nothing to regret. He is not an arsonist or agitator, agitator or demagogue who radicalized and incited Ernst. He was therefore to be acquitted of all charges. In addition, he should be compensated “for the pre-trial detention suffered”.

The lawyers linked their legal arguments with a long polemic: The German state persecutes "patriots" and allows left-wing extremists to do their thing. Since 2009, H. has led the “model example of a legal life”, exercising only his basic right as a participant in right-wing rallies and only legitimate control of elected officials with his publication of the video of Lübcke's Lohfelden appearance. A citizen who offers political resistance to the impending “death of the people” and “demands that the state preserve their identity” should not be criminalized. In doing so, Schneiders relied on a sentence from the Teso ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) of 1987, but ignored the fact that that ruling precisely excluded a purely ethnic definition of the German nation and that the BVerfG confirmed this in 2017 in the ruling on the second NPD ban proceedings would have. In his closing remarks, Ernst stated that he wanted to turn away from those political statements in the pleadings of H's lawyers. H. only said that not all statements in the process had contributed to the clarification.

judgment

On January 28, 2021, the court sentenced Ernst to life imprisonment for the murder of Walter Lübcke and determined the particular gravity of the guilt . The justification given by the judges Thomas Sagebiel and Christoph Koller:

• Ernst planned and carried out the act alone. The allegedly joint plan with H. is unbelievable: At first Ernst only had an agreement to intimidate, then alleged to kill Lübcke and the latter dated spring 2019. He incriminated his own friend in order to dispel the accusation of malice.
• Since the citizens' meeting in Lohfelden in 2015, he has increasingly projected his “xenophobia” onto Lübcke and the gradual emergence of the decision to commit murder was presented in his first confession.
• His "overlaying motive" was a "völkisch-nationalist", right-wing radical and racist sentiment that had been solidified since early youth. This determined his actions and drove him to acts of violence earlier. With this base motive, there is a particularly grave guilt.
• The knife attack on Ahmed I could not be proven in Ernst.
• He was a danger to the general public as a result of a “tendency to serious criminal offenses”. Therefore, the court allowed a preventive detention on after at least 15 years in prison, but did not order them because of the lack of evidence for the second act directly.
• One could neither prove to Markus H. that he was involved in the murder, nor that he had reinforced Ernst in his decision to act. H. was therefore acquitted of the allegation of aiding and abetting murder.
• Because H. had acquired a decorative weapon illegally and without caring about legality, he was sentenced to a prison term of 18 months on probation.

Sagebiel had previously emphasized that the acquittals were not based on the conviction of innocence, but on doubts about the guilt of the accused.

Lübcke's relatives were disappointed with the verdict, especially with H's acquittal from assisted murder and the fact that the last moments before the fatal shot had remained unresolved. Martina Renner (Die Linke) agreed. Politicians from other parties, on the other hand, welcomed the verdict as appropriate, but stressed that it was a signal to step up against hatred and agitation, racism and right-wing extremism. H. should not get out of sight of the police and the protection of the constitution. The committee of inquiry in the Hessian state parliament will hopefully further clarify failures by the security authorities. Federal Government Victims Commissioner Edgar Franke and Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker , who barely survived a right-wing extremist assassination attempt, warned to continue the political appraisal: "Since the NSU murders at the latest, we should not have turned a blind eye to political murders from the right corner" .

literature

• Jean-Philipp Baeck, Andreas Speit: Right first-person shooters: From virtual agitation to live-stream assassination. Christoph Links, Berlin 2020, ISBN 3-86284-471-4 , pp. 117f. and p. 142ff.
• Florian Hartleb: Lone Wolves: The New Terrorism of Right-Wing Single Actors. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2020, ISBN 978-3-030-36153-2 , pp. 39–45
• Patrick Stegemann, Sören Musyal: The right mobilization: How radical network activists attack democracy. Ullstein, Berlin 2020, ISBN 3-8437-2264-1 , p. 63ff.

Web links

• Die Zeit: Walter Lübcke: The murder of the Kassel district president. (Dossier)
• Hessenschau.de: Dossier: Lübcke murder case.
• Nino Seidel, Julian Feldmann: Nazi terrorist under interrogation: the interrogations of Stephan Ernst. CTRL F , July 28, 2020.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulrike Pflüger-Scherb: Relatives found politicians on the terrace at 0.30 a.m. - District President Walter Lübcke died from a close range shot in the head. HNA, June 3, 2019
2. ^ ^{A b} Kassel District President Walter Lübcke was shot. Frankfurter Rundschau (FR), June 3, 2019
3. ↑ Hate comments against Lübcke in the sights of the public prosecutor. Osthessen-News, June 5, 2019
4. ^ Lübcke case: Police take person into custody. Tagesschau.de, June 8, 2019
5. ↑ CDU politicians shot: Lübcke case - investigators have videos from the night of the crime. t-online.de, June 7, 2019
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Lübcke trial: escaped by a flake of skin. Hessenschau, August 27, 2020
7. ↑ Arrest of an urgent suspect in the Lübcke case. Hessenschau, June 16, 2019
8. ↑ Lübcke case: Investigators examine evidence of accomplices. Tagesschau.de, June 18, 2019
9. ^ Lübcke case: Riddle about found Skoda in Kassel district of Forstfeld. HNA, July 9, 2019
10. ↑ ^{a b} Lübcke case: murder suspect called government president "traitor to the people". Spiegel Online, June 21, 2019
11. ↑ Special session in the state parliament: Stephan Ernst had a long criminal record. Hessenschau, June 26, 2019
12. ↑ Killed District President: What we know in the Lübcke case - and what not. SZ, June 18, 2019
13. ^ ^{A b c d e} Kai Biermann, Christian Fuchs, Astrid Geisler, Anton Maegerle, Daniel Müller, Yassin Musharbash, Karsten Polke-Majewski, Martín Steinhagen, Fritz Zimmermann: Case Walter Lübcke: One confession, many open questions. Time online, June 26, 2019
14. ↑ ^{a b c} Martín Steinhagen: Walter Lübckes last night. Time May 27, 2020
15. ^ Frank Jansen: Right-wing extremist admits murder: Stephan E. shot Lübcke out of hatred for his refugee policy. Tagesspiegel, June 26, 2019
16. ↑ ^{a b} Right-wing extremist: suspect asked colleagues for an alibi. Spiegel Online, June 26, 2019
17. ↑ ^{a b c} Matthias Bartsch, Sven Röbel, Fidelius Schmid, Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt, Steffen Winter: Reconstruction of the Lübcke murder: The death lists of Stephan Ernst. Spiegel, April 17, 2020
18. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Kai Biermann, Martín Steinhagen: Lübcke murder case: The weapons of Stephan E. Zeit Online, May 4, 2020
19. ^ ^{A b} Georg Mascolo, Katja Riedel, Ronen Steinke: Walter Lübcke: A murder and its history. SZ, July 7, 2019; Florian Flade, Georg Mascolo, Katja Riedel: Lübcke murder case: confession, revocation and many questions.
20. ^ Lübcke murder case: Stephan Ernst withdraws confession. Hessenschau, July 2, 2019
21. ↑ Steffen Winter: Walter Lübcke murder case: suspect's lawyer files charges for betrayal of secrets. Spiegel, July 8, 2019
22. ↑ Robert Bongen, Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel: Suspect in the Lübcke case: Stephan E. announces new confession. NDR / Panorama, November 28, 2019
23. ↑ Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel: Lübcke murder: suspect speaks of a second perpetrator. Tagesschau.de, January 8, 2020
24. ↑ Lübcke murder case: Investigators still consider Stephan E. to be a shooter. Time online, March 9, 2020
25. ↑ Sven Roebel, Steffen Winter: Lübcke murder case: USB stick burdens Stephan Ernst. Spiegel online, March 20, 2020; Federal Court of Justice: decision AK 63/19 of March 3, 2020
26. ↑ ^{a b} Kai Biermann et al .: Walter Lübcke: Script for an assassination attempt. Time June 26, 2019
27. ↑ ^{a b} Ralph Orlowski: Two more arrests in the Lübcke murder case - investigators discover weapons hiding place. Spiegel Online, June 27, 2019
28. ^ Lübcke murder case: perpetrators are said to have also sold weapons. Spiegel Online, June 27, 2019; Walter Lübcke murder case: alleged accomplices of Stephan Ernst in custody. Welt online, June 27, 2019; Communication on the status of the investigation in the investigation into the murder to the detriment of the Kassel District President Dr. Walter Lübcke. Generalbundesanwalt.de, June 27, 2019
29. ↑ Fidelius Schmid, Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt, Steffen Winter: Ballistic Expertise: Shot experts weigh suspected Lübcke murderers heavily. Spiegel Online, July 16, 2019
30. ↑ Jörg Köpke: Lübcke murder case: New trail leads to Schleswig-Holstein. Elbe-Jeetzel-Zeitung, October 15, 2019
31. ↑ ^{a b c} Nino Seidel, Julian Feldmann: Suspected Lübcke murderer: Investigations into another attempted murder. Tagesschau.de, February 28, 2020
32. ↑ ^{a b} Ronen Steinke: Lübcke case: Eleven riddles and one murder. SZ, September 22, 2019
33. ^ ^{A b c} Martin Steinhagen: Murder case Walter Lübcke: Out of step. Time, October 27, 2020
34. ↑ Sven Röbel, Steffen Winter: knife attack on refugee: Suspected Lübcke murderer was checked by the police in 2016. Spiegel online, 23 August 2019
35. ^ ^{A b} Julian Feldmann, Astrid Geisler, Nino Seidel, Martín Steinhagen: Walter Lübcke murder case: Stephan E. is to be charged with further acts of violence. Time March 24, 2020
36. ↑ Sven Röbel, Steffen Winter: Knife attack on refugees: New investigations against alleged Lübcke murderers. Spiegel Online, July 25, 2019
37. ↑ ^{a b} Frank Jansen: Suspect in the Lübcke murder case: Federal Prosecutor's Office is now also investigating the knife attack on Iraqis. Tagesspiegel, September 19, 2019
38. ^ Uwe Müller, Christian Schweppe: Destroyed evidence and files slow down the Federal Prosecutor's Office. Welt Online, April 5, 2020
39. ↑ Walter Lübcke murder case: Investigators find a list of people - Stephan Ernst announces a new confession. Welt online, November 28, 2019
40. ↑ Suspected Lübcke murderer: The Jewish community of Kassel was on Stephan Ernst's list. Hessenschau, November 29, 2019
41. ↑ Christina Brause et al .: Lübcke murder case: Childhood in combat boots. Die Welt , June 24, 2019 (fee required)
42. ↑ Andrea Bonhagen: Murder suspect Stephan E .: Search for traces in Hohenstein. Hessenschau, June 19, 2019
43. ↑ Walter Lübcke murder case: What we know about the suspect. Spiegel Online, June 26, 2019
44. ↑ ^{a b} Murder of the District President: What is known so far in the Lübcke case. Tagesschau.de, June 27, 2019
45. ↑ ^{a b} Lübcke murder case: The bourgeois facade of Stephan E. HAZ, June 18, 2019
46. ↑ Christina Brause, Alexej Hock, Martin Lutz, Uwe Müller: Stephan Ernst wants to have murdered without a helper. Welt online, June 27, 2019
47. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Martin Klingst et al .: Suspect in the Lübcke case attacked asylum seekers' home. Zeit Online, June 17, 2019
48. ↑ ^{a b c} Murder case Walter Lübcke: The criminal record of Stephan E. Tagesspiegel, June 18, 2019
49. ↑ ^{a b c} Uwe Müller, Manuel Bewarder : Murder case Walter Lübcke: Stephan Ernst was apparently a member of the ethnic "species community". Welt Online, June 28, 2019
50. ↑ ^{a b} Walter Lübcke case: lawyer for the murder suspect confirms the crime. Spiegel Online, June 26, 2019
51. ^ ^{A b c} Matthias Lohr: Lübcke murder case: Stephan Ernst had close contacts with NPD functionaries. HNA, October 27, 2020
52. ↑ Wolfgang Hauskrecht: Lübcke murder: The right-wing extremist world of the suspect Stephan E. Merkur, June 18, 2019
53. ↑ Kira Ayyadi: The murderer Stephan Ernst was not a "lone wolf", he was a party soldier. Belltower News, June 26, 2019
54. ↑ Ulf Lüdeke: After confession and new arrests: Investigators illuminate Stephan Ernst's Nazi network - expert warns of error. Focus, June 29, 2019
55. ↑ ^{a b} Uwe Müller, Andrej Hock: Top neo-Nazi show solidarity with imprisoned Stephan E. Welt Online, June 21, 2019
56. ↑ Robert Bongen, Martin Schneider: Exclusive: Video shows alleged Lübcke murderer Stephan E. NDR / Panorama, June 18, 2019
57. ↑ Per Hinrichs, Uwe Müller, Christian Schweppe: The neo-Nazi godfather to whom Lübcke's gunmen were drawn. Welt Online, October 26, 2020
58. ↑ ^{a b c} Alleged Lübcke murderer Stephan Ernst: A life full of violence. Spiegel Online, November 5, 2020
59. ↑ ^{a b} Konrad Litschko, Christoph Schmidt-Lunau: Murder case Walter Lübcke: A confession and a caesura. taz, June 26, 2019
60. ^ Konrad Litschko: Murder case Walter Lübcke: "One of the best comrades". taz, June 30, 2019
61. ^ Robert Bongen, Julian Feldmann, Anne Ruprecht, Nino Seidel: Alleged Lübcke murderer: Who is Stephan E.? NDR, June 25, 2019
62. ^ Environment of the alleged murderer: Lübcke murder case - connections to right-wing terrorist association. MDR, June 19, 2019
63. ↑ Frank Jansen: Who did the gun for the assassination attempt on Walter Lübcke come from? TS, June 19, 2019
64. ↑ MONITOR corrects representation regarding the demonstrable presence of Stephan E. at a meeting of right-wing extremists in March 2019. WDR, June 26, 2019
65. ↑ Andreas Speit: A donation with potential problems. taz, June 18, 2019
66. ↑ ^{a b c} Lübcke murder: Stephan Ernst and Markus Hartmann at the AfD demo 2018 in Chemnitz. Exif, September 26, 2019
67. ↑ Julia Regis, Patrick Gensing: Alleged Lübcke murderer: Was Stephan E. at the right demo in Chemnitz? Tagesschau, September 26, 2019
68. ↑ Main suspect in the Lübcke murder case: Stephan E. was apparently active in the AfD election campaign. Tagesspiegel, January 21, 2020
69. ^ District of Kassel: AfD throws neo-Nazi out of party who is running on their electoral list. Hessenschau, January 25, 2021
70. ^ ^{A b} Frank Jansen: Shot and shot of the Kassel District President: Walter Lübcke was also in the sights of the NSU. Tagesspiegel, June 21, 2019
71. ^ Ludger Fittkau: Trial against Stephan E .: The murder of Lübcke and the role of the protection of the constitution. DLF, June 16, 2020
72. ↑ Ludger Fittkau: One year of the murder of Walter Lübcke: What role did the NSU play in Hesse? Deutschlandfunk, May 29, 2020
73. ↑ Unfollowed traces in the murder case Halit Yozgat - connections between the NSU murder & the murder of Walter Lübcke. Exif, March 1, 2020
74. ↑ ^{a b} After the Lübcke murder: The right-wing terror network is growing. Hannoversche Allgemeine (HAZ), June 28, 2019
75. ^ ^{A b} Robert Bongen, Otto Carsten, Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel: Lübcke murder case: Alleged helper Markus H. in 2009 at neo-Nazi demo. NDR / Panorama, June 28, 2019
76. ^ ^{A b} Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel: Lübcke murder case: attempted recruitment by the protection of the constitution. Tagesschau.de, May 8, 2020
77. ↑ ^{a b c d} Joachim F. Tornau: Lübcke case: Neo-Nazis in Hessen: militant, right-wing extremist and largely ignored. FRI, December 16, 2019
78. ↑ Sven Röbel, Roman Lehberger: Alleged arms broker in the Lübcke case: the police questioned Markus H. in 2006 about NSU murder. Spiegel Online, June 27, 2019
79. ^ Daniel Müller, Christian Fuchs, Henrik Merker, Martín Steinhagen: Lübcke murder case: The alleged helper of Stephan E. Zeit Online, June 27, 2019
80. ^ Lübcke murder case: alleged accomplice was legally allowed to own weapons. SZ, August 21, 2019
81. ↑ Julian Feldmann, Sebastian Pittelkow, Nino Seidel, Katja Riedel: Lübcke murder: alleged accomplice had legal weapons. Tagesschau.de, August 21, 2019
82. ↑ ^{a b} Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel, Robert Bongen: Lübcke murder case: breakdown with the protection of the constitution. Tagesschau.de, June 11, 2020
83. ↑ Helene Bubrowski, Julian Staib: Murder of Walter Lübcke: Hidden in the brown swamp. FAZ, June 28, 2019
84. ^ Walter Lübcke murder case: Investigators find wanted car. Spiegel Online, July 9, 2019
85. ^ Kai Biermann, Christian Fuchs, Astrid Geisler and Martín Steinhagen: Suspected murderer practiced shooting with reservists. Time, December 12, 2019; Thomas Thiele, Matthias Lohr, Kathrin Meyer: Neo-Nazis practiced with Bundeswehr reservists: Suspected Lübcke murderer: Stephan Ernst shot in another club. HNA, December 10, 2019
86. ↑ Searches: Police seized 46 weapons from the suspects in the Lübcke murder case. Spiegel online, August 20, 2019
87. ^ Lübcke murder case: Kassel neo-Nazi hoarded firearms. Spiegel online, August 30, 2019
88. ^ Lübcke case: Markus H.'s lawyer demands access to files and examines constitutional complaint. HNA, September 20, 2019
89. ^ ^{A b} Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel: Murder of Walter Lübcke: Police checked alleged helpers. Tagesschau.de, March 31, 2020
90. ↑ Matthias Bartsch, Sven Röbel, Fidelius Schmid, Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt, Steffen Winter: How did the second man get internal police records? Spiegel Online, May 29, 2020
91. ↑ Elmar J. from Borgentreich is said to have sold the murder weapon to a suspected Lübcke murderer: "A scene like from a crime thriller". Westfalenblatt, June 28, 2019
92. ↑ Murder case Walter Lübcke: References to right sentiments in arms sellers. Spiegel, September 25, 2019
93. ↑ ^{a b} Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel: Lübcke murder case: suspect had contact with gun collectors. Tagesschau.de, December 18, 2020
94. ↑ Decision of the Federal Court of Justice AK 64/19 of January 15, 2020
95. ↑ Joachim F. Tornau: Background: Another neo-Nazi involved. FRI, July 23, 2020
96. ↑ ^{a b} Shooting training with Markus H .: What role does neo-Nazi Alexander S. play in the Lübcke case? Hessenschau, August 6, 2020
97. ↑ Ralf Euler: Stephan Es Defender: The lawyer from the right-wing extremist scene. FAZ, June 28, 2019
98. ^ Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel: Lübcke-Mord: Fine for gun buyers by Stephan E. Tagesschau.de, April 30, 2020
99. ^ Hanning Voigts: Murder of Walter Lübcke: Judgment against Stephan Ernst receives applause from the environment. FRI, January 29, 2021
100. ↑ Special session in the state parliament - Stephan Ernst had a long criminal record. Hessenschau, June 26, 2019
101. ↑ Protection of the Constitution: file still there, but locked. Hessenschau, June 19, 2019
102. ↑ Stephan E. makes a confession in the Lübcke murder case. Welt Online, June 26, 2019
103. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg: Hessen: Questions about Lübcke murder. FRI, July 12, 2019
104. ^ Luger Fittkau: Right-wing terror network: Connections between NSU and Lübcke murder. DLF, July 12, 2019
105. ↑ ^{a b} Lena Kampf, Ronen Steinke: Gun law: The gun fanatic in the Lübcke murder case. SZ, August 30, 2019
106. ^ Hanning Voigts: Lübcke murder in Hesse: Stephan E. was in NSU report. FRI, September 22, 2019.
107. ↑ Martin Steinhagen: Walter Lübcke murder case: In 2009, Stephan E. considered the protection of the constitution to be "highly dangerous". Time online, October 26, 2019
108. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg: Lübcke murder case: Hesse's protection of the constitution provides explosive information late. FRI, January 29, 2020
109. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg: How does Hesse clarify the murder of Walter Lübcke? FRI, October 30, 2019
110. ^ Pitt von Bebenburg: right-wing extremism: coolly miscalculated. FRI, March 25, 2020
111. ↑ Possible failure of the security authorities: U committee on the Lübcke murder case will start in June. Hessenschau, June 16, 2020
112. ^ Hanning Voigts: Lübcke murder case: contact with prominent neo-Nazi. FRI, October 26, 2020
113. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg, Hanning Voigts: Lübcke murder case: How Hesse's deputies came across "NPD Stephan". FRI, June 19, 2019
114. ^ ^{A b} Pitt von Bebenburg: Lübcke murder case: Constitutional protector Temme was concerned with Stephan E. FRI, October 18, 2019
115. ^ ^{A b c} Matthias Lohr: Temme had to do with alleged Lübcke murderer Stephan Ernst: Investigation committee on Andreas Temme called for. HNA, October 20, 2019
116. ↑ ^{a b} Lübcke-Mord and NSU: A name appears again and again. BR, January 12, 2020
117. ↑ Jörg Köpke: Lübcke murder case: connections to the NSU complex are expanding. RND, January 8, 2020
118. ↑ Patrick Gensing: Right-wing extremists mock those killed. Tagesschau.de, June 4, 2019
119. ↑ Matern Boeselager: The right-wing extremist campaign against the shot CDU politician was so hateful. Vice News, June 4, 2019
120. ↑ Florian Neuhann, Dominik Rzepka: Lübcke murder case - Facebook: Have deleted right-wing hate posts. ZDF, June 24, 2019
121. ↑ ^{a b} Tobias Lübben , Lea Köppen: The hatred against Walter Lübcke is still raging on YouTube. Hessenschau, August 16, 2019
122. ↑ CDU politicians outraged with Lübcke tweet. NTV, June 18, 2019
123. ↑ Florian Gathmann: Values ​​Union wants the exclusion of controversial party member Otte. Spiegel Online, June 18, 2019
124. ↑ Katja Thorwarth: Death of Lübcke mocked: AfD regional association distances itself from its own district association. Frankfurter Rundschau (FR), June 5, 2019
125. ↑ ^{a b c} After the murder of Walter Lübcke: Suspect is said to have described the act as a "mistake". FAZ, June 28, 2019
126. ↑ Horror at statements from Pegida demonstrators about Lübcke. Tagesspiegel, July 5, 2019; Karolin Schwarz: hate warrior. The new global right-wing extremism. Herder, Freiburg 2020, p. 185
127. ^ After the Lübcke murder: further threatening letters to a Frankfurt lawyer emerged. Hessenschau, September 16, 2019
128. ↑ Tim Stinauer: "Phase of forthcoming purges": death threat against Cologne mayor Henriette Reker. Kölner Stadtanzeiger, June 19, 2019.
129. ↑ A replica of an assault rifle sent: Death threat against Saxony's SPD leader Dulig. DLF, June 29, 2019
130. ^ Frank Jansen: Neo-Nazis threaten journalists: A ban on the right-wing extremist group Combat 18 is apparently approaching.
131. ↑ Debate on the net: Can the Siemens boss support Carola Rackete? Standard Online, July 3, 2019.
132. ^ Death threat against Siemens boss Kaeser. BR, July 11, 2019
133. ↑ Frank Jansen: Lübcke's murder and attack in Wächtersbach: security authorities see increased risk of copying. Tagesspiegel, July 24, 2019
134. ^ Konrad Litschko: threatening letters against politicians: hate mail with a thousand senders. taz, October 21, 2019
135. ↑ Police protection increased: Mike Mohring receives a death threat - allusion to Lübcke who was shot. MDR, September 26, 2019
136. ↑ Reference to Lübcke head shot: Oldenburg police chief receives death threat after AfD criticism. dpa / Zeit Online, January 10, 2020
137. ↑ Christian Erhardt: Hate Wave: Exclusive Survey - Agitation becomes action. Kommunal.de, June 25, 2019
138. ↑ Andrea Dernbach: Local politicians show that Lübcke was not an isolated case. Tagesspiegel, July 10, 2019
139. ↑ How at risk are local politicians in Germany? Deutsche Welle, June 21, 2019
140. ↑ "Disgusting" - Steinmeier reprimands hateful comments after Lübcke's death. Welt Online, June 5, 2019
141. ↑ Nico Fried, Susanne Höll, Ronen Steinke: Federal President on the Lübcke case: Steinmeier: “Where the language is brutal, the crime is not far”. SZ, June 17, 2019
142. ↑ Ronen Steinke: Barley: "This hatred is aimed at the center of society". SZ, June 17, 2019
143. ^ ^{A b} Ulrich Weih, Melanie Bäder: Lübcke murder case: Seehofer complains of “brutalization” - details of the alleged perpetrator. FRI, June 18, 2019
144. ↑ Peter Tauber sees complicity in AfD and CDU politicians. Spiegel Online, June 29, 2019
145. ↑ Erika Steinbach reignited hatred of Walter Lübcke. T-online.de , June 6, 2019
146. ↑ Peter Tauber: This enemy is on the right. Welt Online, June 18, 2019; Sven Felix Kellerhoff: "No doubt: This enemy is on the right!" Welt Online, June 19, 2019
147. ↑ CDU boss excludes cooperation with AfD. Tagesspiegel, June 24, 2019
148. ^ Ruprecht Polenz: Right Terror: Freedom Instead of Fascism. Spiegel Online, June 19, 2019
149. ↑ Georg Ismar: “No longer cowardly dive”: Dealing with right-wing terror - CDU politician wants to shake the Union awake. Tagesspiegel, June 25, 2019
150. ↑ Johannes Giewald: "After Lübcke murder: AfD politicians react disrespectfully to a clear Schäuble speech - scandal in the Bavarian state parliament." Der Westen, June 26, 2019
151. ↑ New bird shit scandal: AfD politician Gedeon relativizes right-wing extremist terror. Tagesspiegel, June 27, 2019
152. ↑ Annette Ramelsberger: Germany is dealing with a brown RAF. SZ, June 18, 2019
153. ^ Lübcke murder case - right-wing terrorists want to spread fear. DLF, June 18, 2019
154. ^ Nils Markwardt: War in the head. Republik.ch, July 6, 2019
155. ↑ Christian Bangel: Everyone should be afraid. Zeit Online, June 18, 2019
156. ↑ Walter Lübcke murder case: The brown sleepers wake up. Spiegel Online, June 19, 2019
157. ↑ Benjamin Konietzny: What words do: The AfD has a problem of violence. n-tv, June 19, 2019
158. ↑ Christian Stöcker: Lübcke murder case and the AfD: Who is to blame for the NSU? Konrad Adenauer! Spiegel Online, June 30, 2019
159. ↑ Martin Krauss: Does more have to happen first? Jewish General, June 20, 2019
160. ↑ Birgit Baumann: Lübcke murder: A German nightmare. www.derstandard.at, June 26, 2019
161. ↑ Bettina Gaus: Reaction to the Lübcke murder: You just have to want to. taz, June 28, 2019
162. ↑ Claudia Kuhland: Walter Lübcke murder case: Right-wing terror, brown swamp and the long shadows of the NSU. ARD, June 30, 2019
163. ↑ Georg Mascolo: Hatred of Walter Lübcke: Many wished him death, one finally pulled the trigger. SZ, June 30, 2019
164. ^ Claudius Seidl: The murder of Walter Lübcke: Whose morality? FAZ, June 30, 2019
165. ↑ Margarete Stokowski: Fall Lübcke: Hide hate - a German tradition. Spiegel Online, July 2, 2019
166. ↑ Central Council President Schuster: The Lübcke murder case must "alert all democrats". Time June 18, 2019
167. ^ After the murder of Walter Lübcke: Auschwitz Committee demands consistent action. Jewish General, June 22, 2019
168. ↑ Planned meeting on July 20th: City of Kassel wants to ban right-wing demonstration: Party “Dierechte” criticizes the approach. HNA, July 12, 2019
169. ^ "Dierechte" is planning a demo in Kassel: Are there any connections to Stephan Ernst? HNA, July 10, 2019
170. ↑ Broad alliance: 10,000 against 120 - big protest against the right in Kassel.
171. ^ Lübcke case: Warning of “hatred of the right.” Tagesschau.de, June 18, 2019
172. ↑ Quent: Lübcke murder, new dimension of right-wing terrorism. Welt Online, June 18, 2019
173. ^ Lübcke murder case: Extremism researcher warns of right-wing radical networks. Spiegel Online, June 19, 2019
174. ↑ Extremism researchers: "The Hessian state failed miserably in the Lübcke case." HNA, June 19, 2019
175. ↑ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing terrorist murder of a democratic politician. Look to the right , June 26, 2019
176. ↑ Peter Maxwill: The right scene and the Lübcke case: "We are dealing with a completely new dimension of disinhibition". Spiegel Online, June 19, 2019
177. ↑ Heike Borufka , Tobias Lübben : LKA determined after thousands of hateful comments on Lübcke. Hessenschau, July 4, 2019; Hate speech: LKA expects thousands of cases of hate speech in the Lübcke case. Zeit Online, July 4, 2019
178. ↑ "Murder every two or three years relatively normal": horror at statements from Pegida demonstrators about Lübcke. Tagesspiegel, July 5, 2019; Frank Jansen: Pegida statements on the Lübcke murder: public prosecutor initiates proceedings for approving criminal offenses. Tagesspiegel, July 5, 2019
179. ↑ Protection of the Constitution: eyes to the right in the network. NDR, July 15, 2019
180. ^ Right scene: Raid on the right scene in Hessen: Police find weapons, drugs and sulfuric acid. FRI, December 18, 2019
181. ↑ Hateful comments after the Lübcke murder: More than 100 trials in Hesse. HNA, August 12, 2019
182. ^ Hanning Voigts: murder case Walter Lübcke: raids because of hate comments. FRI, June 4, 2020; Right-wing extremism: 64 internet users identified in the Lübcke murder case. Time online, July 13, 2020
183. ↑ Investigation committee set up for the Lübcke murder. Hessenschau, June 25, 2020
184. ↑ Julia Jüttner: Because of agitation in court: Who are the people who celebrate the Lübcke murder on Facebook? Spiegel Online, June 26, 2020
185. ↑ In response to the Lübcke murder: Seehofer is campaigning for more protection of the constitution. Spiegel, June 2, 2019
186. ↑ Frank Jansen: Clubs and combat groups in their sights: the Federal Ministry of the Interior strikes against right-wing extremists. Tagesspiegel, July 1, 2019
187. ↑ Michael Götschenberg, Holger Schmidt: Right-wing extremist association "Combat 18" is prohibited. Tagesschau.de, January 23, 2020
188. ↑ ^{a b} Accused of alleged murderer of the Kassel District President. Zeit Online, April 29, 2020
189. ↑ Frankfurt / Main: Lübcke process has started. Jewish General, June 16, 2020
190. ↑ Anna-Sophia Lang: Murder case Walter Lübcke: The boundaries of the court. FAZ, June 16, 2020
191. ↑ No video transmission, no laptops: Journalists Union criticizes restrictions in the Lübcke process. Hessenschau, June 5, 2020
192. ↑ Anna-Sophia Lang: The start of the trial in Frankfurt: A “clear signal” from Walter Lübcke's family. FAZ, June 16, 2020
193. ↑ Ansgar Siemens: Walter Lübcke murder case: Main defendant does not want to say anything in the trial. Spiegel online, June 12, 2020
194. ↑ Lawyer in the Lübcke trial: "I look forward to it when the defendants pound each other". HNA, June 14, 2020
195. ↑ Killed Kassel District President: Trial of the murder of Walter Lübcke has begun. Spiegel Online, June 16, 2020
196. ^ ^{A b} Marius Buhl: The Lübcke process - first day, first findings. Tagesspiegel, June 16, 2020
197. ^ ^{A b} Frank Bräutigam: Prelude in Frankfurt am Main: What the Lübcke Trial is about. Tagesschau, June 16, 2020
198. ^ Julia Jüttner: Trial of Lübcke murder: The revoked confession of Stephan Ernst. Spiegel Online, June 18, 2020
199. ^ Hanning Voigts: Lübcke murder case: court deals with Ernst's years in the Kassel neo-Nazi scene. FRI, July 3, 2020
200. ^ Annette Ramelsberger: Scandal in the trial of the murder of Walter Lübcke. SZ, July 27, 2020
201. ↑ Son of Walter Lübcke: "The deed tore the family apart". Welt Online, July 28, 2020
202. ^ Julia Jüttner: Trial after Lübcke murder: The new confession of Stephan Ernst. Spiegel Online, August 5, 2020
203. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg: Lübcke process: After the confession of Stephan Ernst: Relatives of the victim express themselves. FRI, August 6, 2020
204. ↑ As a witness in the Lübcke case: Stephan Ernst's ex-defense attorney refused to testify. Spiegel Online, September 22, 2020
205. ↑ Danijel Majić: Lübcke process: In the jargon of obfuscation. Hessenschau, October 22, 2020
206. ↑ ^{a b} Hanning Voigts: Lübcke murder case: defendant collapses. FRI, November 5, 2020
207. ↑ ^{a b} Julia Jüttner: Trial in the Lübcke murder case: "Tell us the truth - only that can still help us." Spiegel Online, November 16, 2020
208. ↑ Martín Steinhagen: Trial in the Lübcke murder case: Without remorse. Zeit Online, November 19, 2020
209. ^ ^{A b c} Julia Jüttner: Trial in the murder case of Walter Lübcke: New answers, new contradictions. Spiegel Online, December 3, 2020
210. ↑ ^{a b c} Danijel Majić: Lübcke process: questions, answers, more questions. Hessenschau, December 3, 2020
211. ↑ Martin Steinhagen: Lübcke process: "We want the full truth". Zeit Online, December 3, 2020
212. ↑ Marlene Grunert: Lübcke-Prozess: What happened in the last seconds of his life? FAZ, December 3, 2020
213. ↑ Marlene Grunert: Markus H. is released from custody. FAZ, October 1, 2020
214. ↑ Julian Feldmann, Nino Seidel: Lübcke murder case: Dismissed right-wing extremist is a threat. NDR / Tagesschau.de, October 5, 2020
215. ↑ Julia Jüttner: Murder of Kassel District President: The fight of the Lübcke family. Spiegel Online, November 28, 2020
216. ^ Lübcke murder case: files secured by lawyer. NDR, December 2, 2020
217. ^ ^{A b} Julia Jüttner: Pleading in the murder case of Walter Lübcke: "He has nothing to regret". Spiegel Online, January 26, 2021
218. ↑ Hanning Voigts: Lübcke process: Stephan Ernst could be behind knife attack. FRI, October 21, 2020
219. ↑ Julia Jüttner: Co-plaintiff in the murder of Walter Lübcke: “It was a Nazi, not a German!” Spiegel Online, October 29, 2020
220. ↑ Julia Jüttner: Lawyer Alexander Hoffmann "I thought that politicians would see the attack on Walter Lübcke as an attack on themselves." Spiegel Online, January 21, 2021
221. ↑ Julia Jüttner: Plea in the murder case of Walter Lübcke: "He has done everything he can do". Spiegel Online, January 21, 2021
222. ↑ ^{a b c} Danijel Majić et al .: Lübcke trial: The judgment and the silence. Hessenschau, January 28, 2021 (earlier sections below)
223. ↑ Reactions to the verdict in the Lübcke case: "Since the NSU murders at the latest, we shouldn't have closed our eyes." Spiegel Online, January 28, 2021