He’s been fighting for years, even in the real world …
The Youtuber “Dragon Lord” is on trial for dangerous bodily harm. The process begins this Thursday under strict security conditions in Nuremberg. The 32-year-old is said to have hit and injured a man with a flashlight. He is said to have pelted another with a brick. The public prosecutor’s office also accuses him of defamation and insulting police officers.
“Dragon Lord” has been arguing with his opponents for years – not only on the Internet, but also in real life. The so-called haters appear regularly in front of his house in the Middle Franconian village of Altschauerberg to provoke him. At the largest demonstration to date, several hundred people came in August 2018, some of whom, according to the police, had even come from neighboring European countries.
It all started in 2014 when the blogger gave his address in one of his videos and asked his opponents to come to him. Since then, people have been traveling to the “Dragon Lord” s house from all over the world, insulting him, smearing the walls, demolishing his fence, or simply out of curiosity. “For them, his house is something of a place of pilgrimage,” says Michael Petzold from the Central Franconian Police Headquarters.
For the responsible police inspection, the hate demos and the riots in the place are an enormous burden, says Petzold. Again and again she has to move out because of disturbance of the peace, trespassing, assault and other crimes. There are up to 15 missions a day. The responsible public prosecutor’s office in Nuremberg-Fürth speaks of countless proceedings in this context.
The municipality of Emskirchen, to which Altschauerberg belongs, therefore issued a general decree for the district in the summer, which, among other things, prohibits gatherings of people and provides for a fine of up to 1000 euros.
For security reasons, the responsible district court in Neustadt an der Aisch has moved the main hearing against the “Dragon Lord” to the criminal justice center in Nuremberg. The reason is the large number of visitors and the fear that content from the process could get directly to the Internet, said the Nuremberg court spokesman Friedrich Weitner. There is a great deal of interest in the process, he has received calls from all over Germany. On the first day of the trial, the court wants to question several witnesses.
It is not the first time that the courts have dealt with the phenomenon “Dragon Lord”. The blogger himself was before the district court because of a pepper spray attack on one of his opponents. For this he was sentenced to a suspended sentence of seven months in September 2019.
In 2016, the Nuremberg Regional Court sentenced a then 24-year-old to a prison sentence of several years. Among other things, he had made a false emergency call and thus triggered a large police and fire service on the Youtuber.