The crude video messages and chat messages from two soldiers of the Mountain Infantry Brigade 23 in Bad Reichenhall are now also occupying the Defense Committee of the German Armed Forces. On Wednesday, two high-ranking officials reported in a closed meeting of the committee: In addition to Martina Rosenberg, President of the Federal Office for Military Counterintelligence, Inspector General Eberhard Zorn also commented on the incidents. Participants said that there is currently no suspicion that a network of radicalized lateral thinkers might have established itself at the location. The two soldiers who are being investigated were deployed in different areas and acted independently of one another.
Before the meeting of the Defense Committee, it had become known that, in addition to the 29-year-old Sergeant Andreas O., a second mountain infantryman had been targeted by the investigators. A spokesman for the Bundeswehr confirmed that investigations were being carried out against him. The man violated orders. According to a BR report, the soldier is said to have distributed a seven-minute voice message on the Telegram platform. In it he is said to have said, among other things, that he was “at war” and in the “final battle”. He tells his comrades not to get vaccinated under any circumstances. “The Zionists are still pulling the strings from the background,” reads another sentence from the voice message quoted by BR. It is said that the sergeant was said to have been on duty until the very end. The military counter-intelligence service is now investigating him, and the public prosecutor’s office in Traunstein will take over this week.
“This is a warning.”
Mountain infantryman Andreas O. was arrested two weeks ago at Munich’s Odeonsplatz in front of the Feldherrnhalle. Several police officers had positioned themselves there after it became known that the soldier could appear there.
In videos distributed on Telegram and Twitter, O. says that the constitutional order of the Federal Republic of Germany has been disrupted. Among other things, he demanded the withdrawal of the state corona measures and the so-called toleration obligation, according to which the Covid vaccination in the Bundeswehr became a requirement. “This is a warning,” he says in the recording about two weeks ago. “See you tomorrow,” a statement is required. The text accompanying the video states that the “constitutional order” must be restored. “The soldiers will be ready for dialogue until 4 p.m. tomorrow.” He also called on police officers and other soldiers to defend the so-called walks by opponents of vaccination “against attacks from outside”.
The consequences of the statements for O. are still unclear. The Munich Attorney General has taken over the case. The Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism is currently examining whether the suspicion of public calls for criminal offenses is fulfilled. One determines but in all directions, said a spokesman. Investigations are also underway in the Bundeswehr. Immediately after the suspicion became known, criminal and disciplinary investigations were started, says a spokesman. “The Bundeswehr takes the matter very seriously.” Details could not be given because of the ongoing investigation.
According to BR, O. had already become conspicuous earlier, which is why a uniform ban was issued against him in April 2021 and he was suspended from duty. He himself reported in a Telegram video that he had been released since January 2021 because he had refused the mask and vaccination requirements.
According to the Bundeswehr, there are currently three soldiers in the mountain troops in Bad Reichenhall who are not ready for the corona vaccination. Two of them appear “publicly effective” as opponents of vaccination. “Soldiers who refuse or evade vaccination without justification are acting in breach of duty,” a spokesman said. “Attempts within the 23rd Mountain Infantry Brigade to undermine discipline by spreading untruths and calling other soldiers to disobedience are also contrary to duty and will not be tolerated.” They would be prosecuted as a misdemeanor.
“Internal hygiene works”
A video in which O. appeared at a rally against the corona measures had previously caused a sensation. He addressed his words “to all cowards, all high traitors to the Basic Law,” he says in it. “Your corpses will be scattered in the fields.” When asked by a journalist whether he meant politicians, he contradicted at another event – he only warned that “this will end in violence”. This video was made during a “walk” by opponents of vaccination in Magdeburg and was shared in the Telegram group “Soldiers for the Basic Law”.
Florian Hahn, the defense policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, told the SZ that there should be no tolerance whatsoever for such statements in the Bundeswehr. The soldiers would have to leave the Bundeswehr. At the same time, Hahn pointed out that the incidents had been reported by dozens of the two soldiers’ comrades. This shows that the mountain infantry in Bad Reichenhall does not have a silent cartel like the KSK special unit. The “internal hygiene” works, especially since soldiers from Bad Reichenhall did a “very, very good job” in tracing corona contacts.