Marches by Munich’s Pegida, a Reich citizens’ meeting in Tuntenhausen in Upper Bavaria, memberships in the AfD and a car repair shop in the east of Munich: According to investigations by the Munich public prosecutor’s office, these are the fixed points of a suspected right-wing network whose members are currently being tried in various courts in Bavaria. It is about the allegation of smuggling and trafficking in weapons from the former Yugoslavia, including weapons of war.
While the three main suspects have been in court in Munich for weeks, there have already been proceedings against the first buyers of the dangerous goods, which have ended in penal orders or judgments. The public prosecutor’s office in Halle has now closed investigations against a former NPD state chairman from eastern Germany “with regard to a legally binding prison sentence in another matter”. There were a total of 17 suspects in this complex.
How tightly the right-wing comrades had knit their network becomes clear again and again in the Munich trial. Last week, a detective who had evaluated the mobile phone of an Erdingerin testified. The woman, who later became an employee of the Munich AfD member of the Bundestag Petr Bystron, had not only saved several telephone numbers of the main defendant Alexander R., with whom she was briefly involved, but also of at least four other suspects.
Pump shotguns were referred to as “Bosch pumps”, Skorpion submachine guns as “Ford Scorpio”
In messages that the investigators were able to reconstruct, there was talk of shooting training at a club in the north of Munich, of a “gear” for 700 euros that R.’s wife wanted to buy, and of a “long gear”. which he in turn wanted to have picked up in October 2016. The Attorney General’s Office is certain that these were by no means car spare parts. She lists a total of 14 cases in which two pump guns, two assault rifles, an Uzi submachine gun, a rifle, a hand grenade and 24 pistols were – or at least were to be – sold to like-minded people from the right-wing scene. The “long gear” in the Erdinger apartment would have been the Uzi, a weapon of war. Most of the weapons have not yet been found.
The automotive industry terms may not have been chosen at random. According to the indictment, a car workshop in Trudering served as an interim storage facility for some of the weapons organized from Croatia. The gang of the West Balkan mafia, from whose stocks the weapons are said to have come, already used the spare parts code: pump guns were called “Bosch pumps”, Skorpion submachine guns were called “Ford Scorpio”. The owner of the Truderinger workshop was arrested at the main train station on August 10 last year and is now one of the three accused in the district court.
Again and again, traces lead to the AfD – even if a Croatian witness his claim the weapons were intended for the AfD, Withdrew again in early 2021. In addition to the later Bystron employee, at least three other suspects were members of the party, others show their proximity to the AfD on social networks. One of the accused in another trial is said to be a functionary of the “Young Alternative” party youth. The accused Alexander R. was a member of the Munich-Land district association until 2020. The Munich specialist journalist Robert Andreasch, winner of the city’s journalism award and constant observer in the process, reported from the district court at the end of April: Financial investigations had shown that R. had “transferred money to a whole series of party branches of the AfD in Germany”, as well as to individual politicians party politicians.
Pegida, Reichsbürger, neo-Nazis and the AfD – everyone knows each other
Almost all of the accused are said to have had contacts in the right-wing scene, and the public prosecutor’s office speaks of “identical relationships” with each other. Several of those involved belong to the Reich citizens, during a scene lecture in August 2016, a weapon changed hands in a tavern parking lot in Tuntenhausen (Rosenheim district). At least two of those involved in the arms deals were active at Pegida in Munich. Pegida co-founder Birgit W. appeared as a witness in the trial at the end of April – according to Andreasch, “with a statement full of memory gaps”.
The case of a man from northern Germany who, according to the public prosecutor’s office, is said to have had contact with at least three of the Munich suspects who were active in the AfD and the neo-Nazi group “The Third Way” could be particularly revealing. However, the public prosecutor’s office in Kiel, to which the case was handed over, denies that St. was active in the right-wing extremist scene. According to the indictment, St. is said to have ordered ten Walther P22 pistols and ammunition for them from R. four years ago. According to the Attorney General, this was preceded by negotiations that lasted three months before a sale price of 9,000 euros was agreed. The year before, St. is said to have ordered a Kalashnikov, a pump gun and a pistol from R. and his Munich helpers, but then returned the weapons because he was not satisfied with their condition. According to the public prosecutor’s office in Kiel, the investigations against St. are still ongoing. He will not have to testify in the Munich trial – like other potential witnesses, he can refuse to provide information so as not to incriminate himself.
The trial before the Munich regional court is currently scheduled to run until the beginning of June. But that’s not the end of the legal process: four other people involved have to answer to a juvenile chamber of the district court, and a woman to the Munich district court.