More „Blood and Honour“ Chemnitz – more lies and trivialization.

Today saw the further testimony of Thomas Rothe from Chemnitz, who had provided shelter to Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt right after they had gone underground. Rothe tried again (see already the reports of 1 April 2014 and 29 July 2014) to ward off all questions with a simple “can’t recall”, and again, he was largely successful, at least in his questioning by presiding judge Götzl.

The Zschäpe defence, apparently in reaction to the discontent of their client, showed more activities and also referred to Zschäpe’s own knowledge. Counsel Sturm told the witness that according to her knowledge, Mundlos had lived with Rothe during a period of several weeks. However Rothe, not interested in helping elucidate the facts, also denied this.

What Rothe did state in answer to a question by the Zschäpe defence was that he had not only provided shelter to “the Three” in Chemnitz, but that he had also visited them several times in their later apartments in Chemnitz and in Zwickau. He had met several times with Mundlos alone, had been friends with him. Mundlos had also helped him several times with computer problems – most likely concerning his own Nazi zine “Sachsens Glanz” (roughly: “The Radiance of Saxony”) or the “B&H-“zine „White Youth”.

Once again it was up to victims’ counsel to tease out the extent to which the witness was embedded in the militant Nazi scene. Rothe was an “aspirant” to full membership in “Blood & Honour”, knew all the important people, was involved not only in organizing concerts, but also in producing zines. His own zine “Sachsens Glanz” led to him being sent many other publications and records. The reviews of records and zines contained in “Sachsens Glanz” bring together the worst in aggressive, violent Neonazi propaganda of the 1990s.

At least one of Rothe’s answers was an obvious lie: he stated that it was only in a TV show “criminal police live” that he had heard of the earlier crimes of “the Three”, including the hanging of a dummy with a Star of David from a highway bridge. However, in that TV show, which has already been shown in the courtroom, this incident is not mentioned at all.

The testimony of a police officer who had questioned Enrico Theile did not bring to the fore anything new.

At the end of the trial day, victims’ counsel made a statement on the testimony of Tino Brandt, stressing the importance of his statement concerning the “Community of Conviction for the New Front” (Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front, GdnF) (see the report of 30 September/1 October 2014).

The prosecution commented on several motions by victims’ counsel for certain evidence to be heard, stating its consent to several witnesses being summoned. This concerns above all GdnF cadre Kai Dalek, who for many years was also an informer for the Bavarian domestic secret service.

The court has – once again – summoned Thomas Rothe to testify on Tuesday. Rothe was one of the earliest supporters of “the Three” in Chemnitz. The court will also hear testimony from a police officer who had questioned Enrico Theile (see the report of 5 September 2014).

Wednesday and Thursday will again be concerned with the investigations in Switzerland into the chain of custody of the Ceska murder weapon. A police officer and a prosecutor from Switzerland will testify (see the report of 16/17 September 2014).

On Brandt’s contact officers – and on the “Community of Conviction for the New Front“

This week saw above all the testimonies of three contact officers to “Thuringia Home Guard” (THS) and leader and secret service informer Tino Brandt. They had already been interviewed by the court before Brandt’s testimony, but had been called up to testify again – one reason being that some of them had been extremely unprepared for their testimony.

Not that their testimony yesterday and today showed them much better prepared: all three of them could or would not remember their talks with Brandt, not even after the presiding judge read out their memos summarizing them. So much for the way the service dealt with the information presented by its “top source”. At times it seemed like the secret service officials felt that their task was finished once they had typed up their notes of the meetings with Brandt.

Victims’s counsel requested that Kai Dalek be called to testify. In the 1990s, Dalek had built up the mailbox system “Thule net”. He was also a member of the “Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front“ (“Community of Conviction for the New Front“, GdnF) and as such was responsible for overseeing activities in Thuringia, which is why Brandt had told Dalek about the secret service’s interest in him. Dalek, who himself was already working for the Bavarian secret service at the time, told “his” service about the propensity to violence shown by the “Thuringia Home Guard” and about Brandt’s plans to build it up into a “military” organization akin to the historical SA. Brandt had tried to claim in his testimony that the THS had rejected violence.

But Dalek will also have to be asked about the relationship of the THS to the GdnF. The latter was formed by several militant Nazi cadres from Western Germany in the mid-1980s after several Nazi parties and organizations had been dissolved by the authorities. It was an informal, but strongly hierarchical organization of Nazi cadres aiming at organizing all leaders of the several Nazi parties and organizations all over Germany. By quickly reorganizing into new groups, they could guard against the results of administrative actions, which at the same time ensuring via the GdnF that all these groups worked towards the same goals. The GdnF openly propagated National Socialism as its goal and, as means to use that goal, both street terror after the SA model as well as targeted political murders. It was also the GdnF which opened itself up to skinhead culture and which, in the mid-1990s, worked to build up the “Blood & Honour” network both in Germany and internationally. Seeing that at least two of those most influential with regard to the THS, Brandt and Dalek, were either GdnF cadres or subservient to them, it seems quite possible that the NSU itself was also influenced and supported by that network. The GdnF at that time brought together a number of individuals who were both able, practically speaking, to organize and carry through murders and bombing attacks, and politically speaking, to lay down a concept of murders of migrants carried out without claiming responsibility.

Due to ill health of presiding judge Götzl,  the trial day tomorrow has been canceled. The testimony Brandt’s contact officer was interrupted after about an hour. A short report on the trial week will follow later today.

Today the court heard testimony from two contact officers of secret service informer Tino Brandt, as well as statements on Brandt’s testimony by parties. A third contact officer will testify tomorrow, several victims’ counsel have announced further statements on Brandt’s testimony.

We will report on both trial days tomorrow.

On the testimony of informer and THS founder Tino Brandt – and on the question what the domestic secret service did and did not want to know.

The concluding day of Tino Brandt’s testimony again showed the NSU secret service scandal in its full dimension. From 1995 until 2001 when was uncovered as an informer, Brandt was the “best”, “most important”, “top” source for the service. During that time, the slimy informant, who still stands by his Nazi ideology, learned to give out just enough facts that they could count as “information” while at the same time being careful to limit what he divulged so as not to endanger the local or larger Nazi scenes. Quite to the contrary, he received at least 140.000 € from the service, most of which he used to build up the Nazi organizations led by him.

Wohlleben defense attorney took obvious pleasure in asking what these payments to Brandt had been used for: yes, Brandt confirmed, they had been used to pay dues for members of the Nazi party NPD in order to gain majorities in the Thuringia NPD and establish certain political standpoints within the party. These answers are of little use to the Wohlleben defense, but of potential use to the NPD in its defense in the current proceedings to abolish the party, which again shows the bond Wohlleben and his defense share with the NPD. Of course the fact that the radicalization of the party was partly the work of informers will play a role in these proceedings. It was obvious that Brandt enjoyed being able to do politics again.

He also reported that the service had told him from the beginning that it was not interested in crimes committed by Nazis, but only in demonstrations, leading personnel and the like. He had provided only information which the service could also have gained via other sources. This is quite believable – the entire case file of the proceedings in Munich show that none of the information given by Brandt led to the uncovering of crimes, let alone to an arrest. Even the information that Zschäpe, Böhnhardt and Mundlos would call him at a specific phone box at a specific time – information which would have enabled telephone surveillance leading directly to “the Three” – did not lead to any concrete measures aiming at an arrest.

Brandt now claims that he and his comrades had only conducted political activities by legal means. This is an obvious lie: Already involved in the German-wide network of militant neo-Nazis “Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der neuen Front” (“Community of Conviction for the New Front”), Brandt founded and led first the “Anti-Antifa Eastern Thuringia”, then the “Thuringia Home Guard”. These organizations collected addresses of perceived or actual political enemies, conducted hateful propaganda and used violence against their opponents on a massive scale. Another informer stated that Brandt had been called “Brandtstifter” (“fire starter”, a pun on his last name) by many in the scene. Brandt himself is obviously still full of pride when discussing firearms training in South Africa or France.

The court did not ask Brandt many questions. It was content with having him report on collection of money for the three who had gone underground and on the appointment for phone call detailed above. The federal prosecution, as was to be expected, did not ask a single question, keeping to its usual strategy of conducting the trial on the basis of its indictment as quietly as possible and without any criticism of the secret service and/or the police.

Only victims’ counsel succeeded in showing that in the witness chair sat a staunch Nazi reporting only what he wanted to and trying to give everyone the roundabout. These efforts are often criticized as making a conviction for Zschäpe harder to achieve. Such dangers are likely much overstated, and more importantly, an easy conviction of Zschäpe is not worth the price of letting responsible politicians and administrators as well as additional NSU supporters and members of the hook.
The question remain how Brandt could remain in the employ of the secret service for such a long time and only report on worthless trivia. One likely explanation is the political situation in Thuringia at the time. The administration, above all the ministry of the interior, was aggressively anti-communist. A police unit tasking with investigating Nazi crimes and also having an eye on the organizations behind those crimes was dissolved. The danger of Nazi groups was systematically trivialized, anti-fascist groups were persecuted. It was not the Nazi murderers to be who were perceived as disturbing, but Pastor Lothar König and his “Young Parish” who for many years were attacked by the “Thuringia Home Guard.” The fire bombings and pogroms against “non-Germans” were used as an argument for abolishing the right to asylum.

This type of politics continues until today, as shown not only in the nonsensical trial against pastor König for his tireless work against the Nazi march in Dresden. The domestic secret service agencies continue to recruit a large number of informers and through them to pay Nazi groups large sums of money. The racist policies to keep refugees out of the country continue unabated. One answer to the NSU’s crimes and the involvement of the State therein would be to finally allow all persons living in Germany to vote in German elections. This would be one first consequence to be drawn from that scandal, one real consequence rather than just Sunday speeches and reforms giving further powers to the very agencies that have already proven unable to do anything worthwhile with the powers they already have.

But the German state only actually combats political murder when this is in keeping with mainstream opinion. Criminal proceedings against the organizations supporting the NSU are on hold while there is a discussion of marking the ID cards of suspected “islamists” to keep them from moving the country.

Hundreds of “Nongermans” were killed by Nazis and racist in the last thirty years, were beaten to death, burned to death, shot, hundreds more were severely injured. But for the German state, the migrants themselves are still the real danger.

Informer Tino Brandt: the secret service was not interested in Nazi crimes.

The first two witnesses today were a police officer and a judge from Zwickau who had interviewed the old lady who only by chance was rescued from the burning house in the Frühlingsstraße.

The Zschäpe defense made every effort to try to present the interview conducted by the judge in a bad light – despite the fact that that interview only showed the old lady to be incompetent to testify. They also tried to get the police officer to confirm that Zschäpe had rung the old lady’s doorbell before fleeing the scene. Legally speaking, however, this would only confirm Zschäpe knowledge that the old lady was at home and that Zschäpe thus acted in the knowledge that her neighbor could die in the fire. In any event, ringing the doorbell would not be enough to establish “abandonment of an attempt” and free Zschäpe from criminal responsibility.
The testimony of the next witness, Tino Brandt, will continue tomorrow, as planned. We will report on the entirety of his testimony then. Two interesting statements by Brandt, long-time informer for the domestic secret service in Thuringia, are worth reporting already since they show how that service works when it deals with Nazis.

Asked about his “truthfulness as a source”, Brandt stated that he never made any reports dealing with crimes by members of the Nazi scene. The secret service had simply not been interested in clearing up “bar fights” and had not asked about criminal acts.
Brandt also reported that in the early 1990s, he had reported to a “leading comrade” in the militant neo-Nazi scene, Kai Dalek who is now known to have been an informer for the Bavarian domestic secret service. Brandt had, inter alia, told Dalek about the interest of the Thuringia service in recruiting him as an informer. Dalek was a member of the German-wide network „Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der neuen Front“ (GdnF, „Community of Conviction for the New Front“), led by Christian Worch from Hamburg, and within that community was responsible for „leading” the scene in Thuringia.

Over more than a decade the secret service in Germany has claimed that there existed no organization of the militant Nazi scene coordinating the activity of that scene in the background. Antifascist groups had pointed out time and again the importance of the GdnF. Brandt’s testimony today again showed that they were right to do so – even groups like “Blood & Honour” were influenced and steered by this network.

Information on Uwe Böhnhardt’s youth

The court only heard one witness today, a man who in the early 1990s was a member of a group of criminal youths together with Uwe Böhnhardt and Enrico Theile. According to the indictment, Theile was involved in procuring the Ceska pistol for Böhnhardt, Mundlos and Zschäpe. Already in 1993, today’s witness had reported to the police that Böhnhardt, Theile and their acquaintance Länger had access to guns. He confirmed this statement in 2012 when interviewed by the federal criminal police.

Shortly after his 1993 statement, the witness had suffered life-threatening injuries when he crashed a stolen car. His “comrades” left him to die – apparently they had heard of his witness statement. Only one of the developed a “guilty conscience” and called the police. While the witness was recuperating in a hospital, some members of the group tried to enter that hospital – his family members were afraid that he was to be killed for making statements to the police. The witness was placed under police protection and in order to prevent further attacks, his family spread the rumor that he had been killed in the accident.

In his testimony today, the witness confirmed his 2012 statement according to which Böhnhardt often behaved very aggressively, but also very strategically planned certain acts such as car thefts. He also confirmed that Theile had had several weapons. However, it was also evident that the witness tried to downplay parts of his 2012 statement which incriminated Theile, Böhnhardt and others. Another part of his statement explained why he behaved in this way: he stated that he had drunk massive quantities of alcohol already in his youth, but that he had been sober for many years after the accident. It was only after his statement in 2012 that the events of the early 1990s, including the accident and the threats received thereafter, had come back in force. He started drinking shortly thereafter and is also currently suffering from anxiety attacks, for which he has recently started treatment.

His testimony today provided important insights into the mixed scene of Nazis and ordinary criminals in Jena. They not only confirm Böhnhardt’s propensity for violence, but also show that Theile was a logical contact when it came to buying a gun.

More on the Ceska pistol and on the investigations of the investigative team „Bosporus“

The first witness today was the police officer who had questioned Hans-Ulrich Müller, according to the indictment the original buyer of the Ceska murder weapon. In the last interview conducted by this officer, Müller was asked about his contacts in Thuringia, including Enrico Theile, the next link in the pistol’s chain of custody. Müller admitted to knowing Theile as well as other persons from the intersection of criminal and Nazi scenes. However, he still denied having bought the Ceska pistol. However, his statements conflicted not only with those of his acquaintance, but were also contradictory and unbelievable by themselves.

Following his testimony, police detective Vögeler from the Nuremberg criminal police was questioned again – he had already testified on the investigations into the Şimşek and Özüdoğru murder cases on 1 August 2013. One topic today was a discussion between the investigative team “Bosporus”, which was conducting the investigation into the series of murders, and the criminal police in Cologne concerning connections between the murders and the nail bomb attack in Cologne – the Cologne police was in possession of videos showing the perpetrators. These investigations – like the entire investigation of “Bosporus” – remained without result. A proposal to conduct a profiling session on both the murders and the bombing attack was rejected by the Cologne police, who felt that it would be “like comparing apples and oranges.”
Vögeler was also asked about the common investigations with police from other federal Länder, above all the police in Hamburg and Dortmund. Again, he reported that there had been investigations, but these had not led to any concrete results. This was mainly because all police units involved considered the case only under the angle of “criminal acts by foreigners” – despite concrete statements by family members that this must have been the work of Nazis and despite concrete clues in that direction provided by witnesses. Vögeler today could or would not even remember that there had been such clues at the time.

At the end of the trial day, victims’ counsel made three motions for the hearing of evidence concerning the close involvement of “the Three” into the “Blood & Honour” scene in Saxony. These motions aim at showing that Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt were fully integrated into the local Nazi scene during the entirety of their stay in Chemnitz, that they took part in leisure activities and political discussions and were even involved in the production of magazines and propaganda papers. This would again show that the NSU was an accepted part of the German Nazi scene which consciously followed and supported armed groups as part of the strategy to reach its political goals. That it was supported in this aim by informers and payments from the interior service has already been uncovered.

On the origins of the Ceska murder weapon in Switzerland

Yesterday and today, the court heard two Swiss police officers who had conducted several interviews concerning the Ceska murder weapon between 2007 and 2012. Their testimony revealed that the gun was originally bought by Swiss national Hans-Ulrich Müller, albeit with the aid and in the name of an acquaintance. That acquaintance had first denied any involvement, but had finally stated in 2012 that he had bought the gun for Müller and received 400 Swiss francs for doing so. Müller had told him that he wanted to sell the gun in Germany and that it was better if Müller did not ask any questions.

In his interviews, Müller denied these allegations, but quickly got caught up in contradictions. He was arrested by Swiss authorities in 2012. When charged with aiding and abetting murder, he quickly stated that he had been arrested with a silenced Ceska pistol in Germany in the 1990s. He had in fact been arrested in Germany in 1997 – but the gun in question had been a Luger .22 without a silencer. By immediately referring to the silenced Ceska gun, which was frequently mentioned in the press from November 2011 on, Müller showed that he knew of the connection of the gun he had sold to the NSU murders.

The defense teams of Zschäpe and Wohlleben made much of trying to show supposed contradictions in the statement of the first policeman. They objected to his statement on the first interviews of Müller’s acquaintance being considered in the judgment. This is not quite understandable: for one, it is hard to see any reasons on which such an objection could validly be based. Most importantly, however, even if the court indeed set aside his testimony, this would not help the defense’s case at all – after all, it was only in a later statement that Müller’s acquaintance had admitted to his role in buying the gun.

The testimony of the second officer is not yet finished and will continue tomorrow.