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Raid in Aldenhoven near Düren
Photo: Ralf Roeger / dpa
After a raid in Aldenhoven in the Düren district, during which an extensive arsenal was discovered, the public prosecutor's office is investigating a 32-year-old Bundeswehr officer.
According to SPIEGEL information, the captain belongs to the Bundeswehr Center "Counter-Improvised Explosive Devices".
The unit, headquartered in Gelsdorf in Rhineland-Palatinate, is responsible, among other things, for the analysis of self-made explosive devices and their defense.
The officer attracted attention because he wanted to send a suspicious package to the USA. During a customs inspection at Frankfurt Airport, officials discovered a silencer for a machine gun from the Second World War and turned on the Frankfurt am Main public prosecutor's office. Since the silencer was possibly part of a prohibited weapon of war, the investigators first obtained a search warrant on suspicion of a violation of the Foreign Trade Act.
During the house search, they found an extensive arsenal: According to SPIEGEL information, they found mainly long and short weapons from Eastern Europe, as well as large amounts of ammunition, which, however, was mostly dismantled, i.e. without propellant charge.
This should also have included 120 millimeter ammunition, such as can be shot down by Leopard 2 tanks.
The explosives, apparently professionally removed, were rendered harmless during the raid by specialists for safety reasons in the garden.
As SPIEGEL learned from security circles, the investigators have not yet received any indications of a political background to the case.
Relevant propaganda material or the like was not found during the search, it said.
However, the evaluation of the seized evidence has not yet been completed.
Most recently, incidents in the Bundeswehr's guard battalion caused a stir.
As SPIEGEL reported last week, a nationalist and partly right-wing extremist group formed within the second company, which is said to have described itself as a "wolf pack".
The men are said to have urinated on other comrades and beaten them with burning lighters, soldiers of Asian descent were denigrated as "Fiji" and "slit eyes".
Particularly explosive: the company of the guard battalion has so far been used for protocol honorary service on state visits.
After the incidents became known, she was completely removed from the Ministry of Defense's protocol service until further notice, and internal investigations are ongoing.
