‘We are Nazis to the bitter end’: right-wing group on trial for terror
An extremist group accused of attacks at refugee homes and against left-leaning politicians is on trial starting this week, facing charges of terrorism.
Shortly before midnight on a September evening in 2015, Patrick F. allegedly crept to a multi-family house in the Saxon town of Freital, and stuck two explosive devices to the kitchen window of the ground-floor apartment: a Super Cobra 12’ firecracker and ‘ball bomb’, according to Focus magazine.
No one was hurt or killed by the explosion, but this was by chance: the eight asylum seekers who lived in the house were sleeping, not spending time in the kitchen.
Patrick F. is just one of eight going on trial starting Tuesday for five different attacks: one on the office of a left-wing politician, one on the car of another politician, one on an alternative living project, and two on refugee homes.
The seven men and one woman face charges of starting a terror cell, attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm, causing explosions and property damage.
A 161-page indictment seen by Focus describes how the Freital group wanted their political opponents “to be intimidated, and asylum seekers in Germany to feel prompted to leave.”
The group had also reportedly accepted that the victims of their attacks could be killed.
The Freital terror cell dates back to the summer of 2015 with the formation of a vigilante group called FTL/360 - named for the 360 bus line they vowed to protect from “criminal asylum seekers”.
One of the reported ringleaders along with 25-year-old pizza delivery driver Patrick F. was Timo S., a 28-year-old bus driver who claimed he saw attacks on German women.
“That is what we will prevent,” the group wrote on Facebook. “Join in, Freital fights back!”
According to Focus, authorities at first thought the organization to be harmless, but suspicions quickly arose after the attacks on immigrants and left-wing politicians.
To communicate, they used the messaging app KakaoTalk and exchanged hateful slogans like: “We are Nazis until the bitter end”.
They even referred to themselves as “terrorists”, while disparaging refugees as Untermenschen (subhumans), “wretched parasites”, “cattle” and “biologically deficient units”. They said such people must be “annihilated”, “slain”, or “hanged at the next lamp post”.
“If I were in power, all the illegal foreigners would be burned alive - regardless of whether they were man or child,” one of the accused reportedly wrote.
When speaking about assassination plans, the group members used special terms often related to fruits for explosive devices and detonating agents: “We need a really big fruit”, or “two giant apples, two normal ones”. The code word for an attack was “food”.
In the defendants’ apartments, police discovered around 300 Czech pyrotechnic explosive devices, which are forbidden in Germany for their extreme force. Officers also found instructions for making pipe bombs on a USB stick.
The trial starts on Tuesday in Dresden. Four experts and 90 witnesses have been called to court for the case.
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Shortly before midnight on a September evening in 2015, Patrick F. allegedly crept to a multi-family house in the Saxon town of Freital, and stuck two explosive devices to the kitchen window of the ground-floor apartment: a Super Cobra 12’ firecracker and ‘ball bomb’, according to Focus magazine.
No one was hurt or killed by the explosion, but this was by chance: the eight asylum seekers who lived in the house were sleeping, not spending time in the kitchen.
Patrick F. is just one of eight going on trial starting Tuesday for five different attacks: one on the office of a left-wing politician, one on the car of another politician, one on an alternative living project, and two on refugee homes.
The seven men and one woman face charges of starting a terror cell, attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm, causing explosions and property damage.
A 161-page indictment seen by Focus describes how the Freital group wanted their political opponents “to be intimidated, and asylum seekers in Germany to feel prompted to leave.”
The group had also reportedly accepted that the victims of their attacks could be killed.
The Freital terror cell dates back to the summer of 2015 with the formation of a vigilante group called FTL/360 - named for the 360 bus line they vowed to protect from “criminal asylum seekers”.
One of the reported ringleaders along with 25-year-old pizza delivery driver Patrick F. was Timo S., a 28-year-old bus driver who claimed he saw attacks on German women.
“That is what we will prevent,” the group wrote on Facebook. “Join in, Freital fights back!”
According to Focus, authorities at first thought the organization to be harmless, but suspicions quickly arose after the attacks on immigrants and left-wing politicians.
To communicate, they used the messaging app KakaoTalk and exchanged hateful slogans like: “We are Nazis until the bitter end”.
They even referred to themselves as “terrorists”, while disparaging refugees as Untermenschen (subhumans), “wretched parasites”, “cattle” and “biologically deficient units”. They said such people must be “annihilated”, “slain”, or “hanged at the next lamp post”.
“If I were in power, all the illegal foreigners would be burned alive - regardless of whether they were man or child,” one of the accused reportedly wrote.
When speaking about assassination plans, the group members used special terms often related to fruits for explosive devices and detonating agents: “We need a really big fruit”, or “two giant apples, two normal ones”. The code word for an attack was “food”.
In the defendants’ apartments, police discovered around 300 Czech pyrotechnic explosive devices, which are forbidden in Germany for their extreme force. Officers also found instructions for making pipe bombs on a USB stick.
The trial starts on Tuesday in Dresden. Four experts and 90 witnesses have been called to court for the case.
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