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The accused before the regional court in Leipzig: The investigators discovered a lot of Nazi devotional objects in his house
Photo: JENS SCHLUETER / AFP
The photo shows an idyllic suburb.
A white single-family house with a red roof, next to it a carport, surrounded by a large garden.
In the next photos, which the presiding judge shows on Friday in room 115 of the Leipzig Regional Court, only a crater landscape is left of the well-tended lawn.
There are two days between the photos in May 2020. The State Criminal Police Office (LKA) Saxony had the garden in the northern Saxon town of Collm digged up with an excavator.
The investigators found an AK-47 assault rifle, around 6000 rounds of ammunition and two kilograms of explosives in several earth depots.
On the property they also found the remains of a shot bazooka, smoke and training grenades, a silencer, detonators and Nazi devotional objects.
The house and garden belong to Philipp Sch., An elite soldier in the Bundeswehr.
Since this Friday, Philipp Sch.
answer before the 6th Large Criminal Chamber for violating the War Weapons Control Act and the Weapons and Explosives Act.
Philipp Sch.
is 45 years old, divorced and now engaged again.
He keeps his shaved head bowed.
He has been a professional soldier since 2001 and has been a member of the Special Forces Command (KSK), an elite unit of the Bundeswehr, since 2011.
"Bottlenecks in ammunition and equipment"
Philipp Sch.
is not silent on the allegations.
In court, he reads a prepared text.
And the way he depicts it, he buried the thousands of rounds of ammunition, the two kilograms of explosives, the detonators, the smoke grenades, the Kalashnikov and all the other things in his garden for educational reasons.
At the end of his admission, he will burst into tears in the dock.
Philipp S. last worked as a trainer at the KSK.
And with this training activity he established his underground weapons depot at home in Collm.
He speaks of a "mismanagement" in the Bundeswehr and of the fact that the KSK also had "shortages of ammunition and equipment".
"Field-based training" is an important part of the training.
"In order to ensure the success of the training," he began at some point to set up his own camp.
For years he had diverted ammunition and other material from leftover stocks of the Bundeswehr in order to use them in exercises.
"For me it was a personal concern to train the soldiers entrusted to me as best as possible."
Pig heads and Hitler salute
Until 2017, he had stored the weapons and ammunition in a locked box in his office at the KSK location in Calw, Baden-Württemberg.
It was evidently clear to him that he was not allowed to do that.
Because in the spring of 2017 he brought the things to his home in Collm, Saxony - allegedly in order not to further discredit the 2nd KSK company, to which he belonged, should his ammunition depot be discovered.
Because in the spring scandalous incidents at a farewell party for the chief of the 2nd company, Pascal D., became known.
Right-wing music is said to have been played at the party in April 2017, pigs' heads were thrown and the Hitler salute was shown.
A woman who was there at the time made the matter public.
The military secret service (MAD) became active, the public prosecutor was investigating.
One of the party guests was Philipp Sch.
According to the witness, he too should have shown the Hitler salute.
In court, Sch.
now that, based on the investigations into the farewell party, he decided to remove the stashed ammunition from Calw.
In Collm he buried them in his garden.
He did not think about possible consequences.
He hadn't given any further thought.
"The handling of weapons and explosives is normal for soldiers," he says.
For him it was simply a "work tool".
In general, the handling of weapons at the KSK was "extremely laissez-faire".
In 2020 he wanted to bring the ammunition and explosives from his garden to a shooting range on the occasion of a training event.
The few thousand rounds of ammunition and the two kilograms of explosives are a "relatively small amount" that would not have been noticed there.
The KSK uses completely different amounts of ammunition per year in training, around a million rounds.
But the corona pandemic ultimately thwarted his plans.
The training had been canceled, ammunition and explosives remained in the garden.
"Something like this will never happen again"
On May 13, 14 and 15, 2020, the LKA then searched his house and property.
On May 13th, Philipp Sch.
Arrested in the barracks in Calw.
He remained in custody until December and was released subject to conditions.
"The arrest and imprisonment in the Dresden JVA made me think more deeply," he says now.
He recognized that his "naivety and carelessness" were wrong.
"I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the mistakes I have made." He bursts into tears.
The judge gives him five minutes to catch himself up again.
Then Philipp Sch.
a second chance.
“I've learned from my mistakes.
Something like that will never happen again. "
Philipp Sch answers questions.
not that day.
Nor does he report any of the other finds in his house.
This is then taken over by a chief detective of the special commission for right-wing extremism - in short: Soko Rex - of the LKA Sachsen.
In Sch.
the officials found numerous Nazi devotional objects.
They discovered postcards with Nazi motifs, an SS songbook and numerous Nazi magazines.
Including four issues of »Nation and Europe« and 14 issues of »Der Freiwillige«, a magazine for former members of the Waffen SS.
In the closet there were Thor Steinar T-shirts.
The brand is well known to the LKA man.
"We regularly find that in our rights."
Was he really acting alone?
The Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD) had the LKA on the trail of Philipp Sch in February 2020.
brought.
The MAD had received the information that Philipp Sch.
allegedly buried a box of ammunition in his garden.
"He should also be anti-Semitic, or at least anti-Semitic," the LKA man reproduces the MAD's advice.
The Soko Rex was switched on.
The officers dug up Sch.'s garden - and found four earth depots.
How is Sch.
got the ammunition?
Did he act alone or did others help him?
The investigators found no evidence of a right-wing extremist network, says the LKA official.
Not even on individual supporters.
"Is there anyone who can put these things aside?" Asks the prosecutor.
This question also haunted the investigators, says the LKA official.
And how it can even be that ammunition and explosives disappear in the Bundeswehr.
"In the end we did not manage to clarify how ammunition could be disposed of," says the chief detective.
And: »I am still not one hundred percent sure whether Mr Sch.
that was alone - or not. "
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