For the beginning of the radical upheaval, they are said to have marked the day of German Unity, October 3, 2018, a national holiday in the country for 28 years. But for the eight men from Chemnitz there was nothing to celebrate, on the contrary.
Since the death of Daniel Hillig on August 26, 2018, at three o'clock in the morning, at the city festival of Chemnitz, they were determined, in the opinion of the Attorney General, to enforce a state on their own in the sense of their National Socialist convictions. They planned the "Revolution Chemnitz". With violence and deadly attacks.
National Socialist glorification
At first they mingled with the chaos that broke over Hillig's death. A Syrian and an Iraqi were suspected of stabbing the 35-year-old carpenter. The deadly knife attack drove thousands into the streets, right-wing extremists called for "funeral marches", there were violent riots and racially motivated attacks.
In the thick of it all: the eight men, firmly anchored in the hooligan, skinhead and neo-Nazi scene in the Chemnitz area, all with criminal records, most of them - sometimes together - already in prison. Some of them have been friends for many years, they are close friends. However, they all share their hatred of foreigners, their fear of alienation and their Nazi glorification, which they openly display through tattoos, clothing style and Nazi devotional material.
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Protest in Chemnitz in November 2018
When in August the Syrian Alaa S. was sentenced to nine and a half years imprisonment for manslaughter against Daniel Hillig, the eight men were long in custody. Since October 1, 2018, they are housed in eight different prisons of the Republic. The Attorney General accuses them of having founded the terrorist organization "Revolution Chemnitz" starting on September 10, 2018, and of having agreed to commit murder or manslaughter as well as serious criminal offenses.
"Planning for the revolution" via chat
They are said to have set up a chat group at the messenger service Telegram, which they called "Planning for the Revolution". It says: "It is time to let words not only speak, but also deeds." The National Socialist Underground (NSU) once propagated: "deeds not words." In the chat, the Chemnitzer group describes the terror cell that killed ten people as a kindergarten pre-school group compared to what they would have in mind of revolt.
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Christina K. (middle) had to answer in April before the Chemnitz district court for violating the Saxon assembly law.
The Attorney General is convinced that the eight men were widely networked and tried to obtain semi-automatic firearms; that they planned attacks on people with a migration background and politically dissenters and accepted their deaths. So they wanted to initiate on October 3, 2018 in Berlin, the "system change", against all "Merkel zombies" and "Linksparasiten". From the point of view of the investigators, this attack was only the prelude to the "overthrow of the government and the elimination of a democratic constitutional state". Four of them are supposed to have done a kind of test run on the castle pond island in Chemnitz.
On Monday begins now the criminal case against the eight native Saxons before the State Security Senate of the Higher Regional Court Dresden (OLG). After the trial against the Freital group, which attacked asylum seekers' homes, this is another major terrorist trial in Saxony. The security checks are extreme, on this day no other process will take place in the secluded high-security wing on the outskirts of the city.
Who are the men who are now in court?
Unlike the members of the group Freital, which radicalized without long lead time, the alleged followers of the "Revolution Chemnitz" for years in the right scene are active.
Who are the men who presumably wanted to forcefully bring about a "system change"? SPIEGEL has compiled the following information about the eight defendants:
Christian K. , housed in the correctional facility (JVA) Zwickau, has put on a rollercoaster career among neo-Nazis: The 32-year-old already belonged to the banned association "Storm 34", a right-wing extremist comradeship whose goal was a "National Liberation Zone " to accomplish.
Twice, in the years 2005 and 2015, he wanted to get out of the right-wing extremist scene with the help of the Saxon constitutional protection, let it stay and is now considered the ringleader of the "Revolution Chemnitz".
Christian K. is the father of a ten-year-old daughter and officially registered as homeless. Most recently, he lived with one of the other defendants. He has extensive experience with prison stays, during which he graduated from secondary school and trained as an electrician.
Christian K. is often convicted of robbery, fraud, sedition and use of the characteristics of unconstitutional organizations.
Sten E. , 29, incarcerated in the Würzburg Prison, is a violent and convicted hooligan convicted of dangerous bodily harm who beat his partner and a fan of Halleschen FC. Sten E. is a skilled construction worker, father of a seven-year-old boy, a daughter died at one and a half years of a brain tumor. He is divorced from the mother of the two children. His last relationship broke in the spring when he was in jail.
Martin H. sits in the juvenile penitentiary Regis-Breitingen near Leipzig. At the age of 21, he is the youngest among the defendants. His convictions, however, seem no less solid than those of the co-defendants. Martin H. already has twelve entries in the Federal Central Register for insulting, using the marks of unconstitutional organizations, intentional assault. He broke off an apprenticeship as a painter and worked recently at temporary employment agencies.
In the Tat period he was adolescent. His defense lawyer Daniel Sprafke says: "Political processes are not provided for in our state of law, so the defense has to ensure that no prejudice comes from any political opinion."
Maximilian V. , 29, housed in the Nuremberg Prison, has a Federal Central Register with more than a dozen entries of personal injury and traffic offenses; Once he was convicted for going to a police officer with the defendant Christopher W. In his hometown of Burgstädt, Maximilian V. announced his political attitude with the help of numerous graffiti such as "stop Volkstod" and "NS now".
Christopher W. , 29, has to serve his pre-trial detention in Leipzig. The father of a seven-year-old girl graduated after a broken apprenticeship training as a parts judge in prison, as he sat after the joint assault with Maximilian V. on a police officer a juvenile penalty.
Marcel W. , 31 years old and convinced neo-Nazi with 22 entries for assault and property damage, is detained in Zwickau. He has a nearly nine-year-old son.
Sven W. , 28, is father of two toddlers and temporary workers with drug past, several times convicted, also because he with "Sieg Heil!" and "Heil Hitler" calls and the "Hitler salute" had been noticed. He is sitting in the Bavarian Amberg.
The shortest arrival on Monday morning is Tom W. , who is in the prison in Dresden. The 31-year-old already sprinkled a swastika at the age of 16 in the washroom of a salt dormitory complex and moved through Mittweida at the age of 17 to hunt down foreigners. As a ringleader he was involved in the founding of the association "Sturm 34".
The eight defendants are represented by a total of 16 defense lawyers. They will try to play down the group's plans and dismiss the racially motivated, partly inhuman remarks from the chat protocols as verbally radical, virtual Stammtisch talk.
"Civil war riots"
The Berlin political scientist Hajo Funke, who appeared as an expert in the NSU committees of inquiry in Thuringia, Bavaria and Hesse, says about the group from Chemnitz: "If you take that seriously, they had more than what we know so far of the NSU group that is, the provocation of civil war-like riots by the reaction of state security agencies. "
The "Sturm 34" allegiance of some defendants, which the Saxonian parliamentary delegates of the left Kerstin Köditz described as "armed arm of the NPD", sees spark as particularly critical. Against this background, the ideology and activities of the terrorist group "Revolution Chemnitz", newly formed in this form, must be taken seriously, he warns. "Obviously, they are by no means only an immediate reaction to the Fanal of Chemnitz, interpreted from the far right as an appeal for more right-wing extremist acts of violence."
For the time being, 30 trial days are scheduled for the process until April 2020.