Uwe Hartmann has just come from the doctor and has been on sick leave since Monday. Ten days ago, on February 4, at four in the morning, an arson attack was carried out on the Kitzinger City Council’s car. A fireman told him that night: Five minutes later and the fire would have spread to the house – built in 1860. An investigative commission was set up, and a week after the crime, with the help of the State Criminal Police Office, a 27-year-old suspect was arrested. According to investigators, he admitted to having deliberately set fire to the Smart with an accelerant. The man was brought before the magistrate on Saturday. He issued an arrest warrant for particularly serious arson, but suspended it against conditions.
Completely off the roll
Specifically, this means that the 27-year-old is at large. What the city council – who also sits on the district council for the Bavarian party and works as the state manager of the party – has since caused sleepless nights. He and his wife are at their wits end, says Hartmann. At least since he knew that the man was free again, he didn’t close his eyes. “I’m a local politician,” says Hartmann, who works full-time for the Red Cross. He doesn’t just put things like that away. He takes his hat off to the investigators. But he found it difficult to understand the court’s decision.
The 27-year-old is said to have admitted a “political motivation”, but that can mean a lot. Hartmann counts himself in the “more socially committed” wing of his party. The day before the attack, the local newspaper announced that in future he would hold a vigil every Sunday for those who died in the corona pandemic. He also wanted to pay tribute to the medical staff with the campaign. The following night, the car burns, which is clearly identifiable as a vehicle belonging to Hartmann’s party with a decoration (“Bavarian Party – white-blue thinking, with a red-white heart”). An accident?
Hartmann doesn’t believe it was a coincidence, but he doesn’t have a conclusive explanation for the attack either. Especially since the 27-year-old ran in the last city council election on the list of the Bavarian party, in the penultimate place. Hartmann believes he only spoke to the man three times: at a political round table, when the list was being drawn up and once, about a year ago, in the supermarket. On his Facebook profile, the 27-year-old shows himself shirtless in front of the American flag.
Hartmann says he was messaged in June by a man who said he was the 27-year-old’s “carer”. He resigned from the party because he did not agree with Hartmann’s political orientation. According to the city council, he was “just completely off the hook.” According to the Würzburg district court, the 27-year-old now has to report to the responsible police station four times a week, and neither the public prosecutor’s office nor the court are currently providing any further information. He doesn’t see the conditions as great protection, says Hartmann.