The former Bamberg CSU functionary Stefan Düring has to go to prison for ten months. The Hof district court sentenced him to prison in October last year for fraud in two cases and attempted fraud in connection with Corona aid, as a spokeswoman confirmed. First he Franconian day reported.
Düring has only been in prison since August 11 because he unsuccessfully applied for a stay of sentence, i.e. to start prison at a later date. The Hof District Court must now decide on his appeal against the rejection of his application. The district court had previously considered it proven in the process that the former secretary and digital officer in the Bamberg local branch of Wunderburg/Gereuth in January 2022 stole Corona bridging aid in two cases of 4500 euros each and tried this in another case without success. According to the court spokeswoman, in the application he falsely stated that he was a sole proprietor. In addition, Düring received a fine for insult.
Incidentally, the trial that got him jailed was not his first encounter with the judiciary. Two years ago, a cease and desist order and a penalty order of 4,000 euros were issued against him because he described the chairman of the SPD local branch in Ellertal (Bamberg district), Thomas Pregl, as right-wing radical and anti-Semitic on Facebook and compared him to Adolf Eichmann, considered the organizer of the Holocaust. Düring also had to pay compensation of 700 euros to Pregl.
At the end of March this year, members of various Bamberg parties then raised accusations of racism against the CSU man, whom acquaintances describe as a Franz Josef Strauss fanatic. In his comparatively insignificant function as digital officer, he oversaw the Facebook page of his local association – and equated specialists there, who would find it easier to come to Germany due to changes to the immigration law planned by the federal government, with terrorists. In other posts he defamed Green politicians. Düring defended himself against the allegations. “As a people’s party, we see it as a task and duty to take justified concerns from our midst seriously and carry them forward,” he told the SZ at the time.
A month later, the public prosecutor’s office in Bamberg opened investigations against him on charges of publicly inciting criminals to commit crimes. The reason for these investigations were also Facebook posts, but this time from Düring’s private account. In a comment he had written in connection with the shutdown of the last remaining nuclear power plants in Germany: “Order 66 for the Greens!” This is an order from the “Star Wars” film series that calls for the destruction of the Jedis, who are said to have betrayed the Empire. A few days after the investigations began, Düring resigned from his posts, also under pressure from party colleagues.
Those investigations are now complete. Because the accused himself has not yet found out whether the public prosecutor’s office will file charges, issue a penalty order or stop the investigation, the authorities have not yet provided any information.
In addition to the legal assessment, the handling of the Bamberg CSU with Düring is also exciting. District chairman Gerhard Seitz announced in April that he would first wait for the results of the investigation with regard to a possible party exclusion procedure. The fraud verdict came before that. The party now wants to calmly examine whether this could initiate such a procedure.