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News of the day: Interior Minister with Glock - he just wants to hunt

2020-11-13T17:42:08.517Z


A north German interior minister buys a pistol. An American president robs his supporters. And a Berlin public prosecutor keeps little distance from the "lateral thinkers". That is the situation on Friday evening.


1.

The Minister's private pistol

The conservative interior minister of a north German state buys a pistol from a beefy marksman, on whose shooting range right-wing extremist police officers train for the coup.

Sounds like the start of a particularly wacky "crime scene" or the side thread of a Christian von Ditfurth crime novel?

But it is the latest twist in the unfortunately very real

"Nordkreuz" complex.

It's about three men:

  • Marko G .:

    The former soldier and policeman founded the "Nordkreuz" group, a network for right-wing preppers who hoarded weapons and ammunition and prepared for "Day X" - the moment when the state order would collapse in their hope becomes.

    According to a witness, two of the members were discussing in chat groups "collecting and killing" left-wing refugee supporters;

    They are said to have noted the names and addresses of politicians on enemy lists.

  • Frank T .:

    The former sports shooter and 42-time German champion runs a remote shooting range in Güstrow, 70 kilometers from Schwerin, with his company "Baltic Shooters".

    Special units from home and abroad trained there for years.

    Frank T. posts pictures against the "EU dictatorship" on Facebook.

    Since 2017 there have been indications that his shooting range is also a meeting place for right-wing extremists.

    Frank T. regularly engaged Marko G. (see 1.) as a trainer.

  • Lorenz Caffier

    : In an interview with my colleague Gunther Latsch, the CDU interior minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, formerly patron of a "Special Forces Workshops" organized by Frank T. (see 2.), admitted that he would be with the shooting range operator in 2018 Having bought a "handgun", according to SPIEGEL information, it was a Glock.

    "Exclusively for hunting," as

    Caffier

    says.

    A year before he was informed about the "Nordkreuz" investigation.

    However, he avoided similar inquiries in recent months (for example from the "taz").

    At a press conference yesterday he said: "A private matter remains a private matter".

  • Icon: enlarge

    Interior Minister bought a short weapon, according to SPIEGEL information, a Glock

    Photo: Jens Büttner / dpa

    Now nobody accuses the minister of being somehow involved in the "Nordkreuz" machinations.

    Gunther says it is believable that Caffier was innocent when he bought the gun.

    At that time, Frank T. was considered an "innocent top expert," as Caffier says.

    The question remains, however, why, when he found out about the investigation, he did not immediately make the gun purchase public.

    Did he really think this was his private matter?

    "You can find that naive, but it was like that," says Caffier.

    • Read the whole interview here: "I'm a hunter, handguns are part of normal equipment"

    • And read more about the background here: The Minister's arms dealer

    2.

    Hate of the Union

    Conspiracy ideologues and crazy people

    in Germany prefer to chat via the Telegram messenger app.

    (A suspected right-wing terrorist from "Group S." is also said to have started to rally men in chat groups to build up a kind of militia. Read more here.) In the USA, however, a

    social network with the French name Parler is

    growing rapidly: At the beginning of the year, the platform from Nevada in the US state of Texas still had a million members, now it is eight million according to its own information.

    In the past week alone, 4.5 million profiles are said to have been added - when Donald Trump's defeat became apparent.

    Icon: enlarge

    This protest is not directed against shoplifting

    Photo: Syed Yaqeen / ZUMA Wire / imago images

    "Parler is a bad swamp of false reports

    and a paradise for conspiracy theorists," says my colleague Jörg Breithut.

    "Facts do not count here. Anyone who declares Trump the election winner and insults Joe Biden as a criminal will be celebrated."

    According to Jörg, corona deniers, anti-vaccination opponents and racists can spread fake news unhindered: "Nobody steps in. It almost feels as if all the posts on Parler that have been blocked on Facebook and Twitter appear."

    (Read more here)

    The new SPIEGEL is here, here digitally, from Saturday on the kiosk

    Some users are also rushing against former President

    Barack Obama

    .

    She annoys that, with Biden, Obama's legacy is now moving into the White House.

    In the coming week, the ex-president's memoirs will be published, and SPIEGEL will exclusively print an excerpt (you will find the new issue at the kiosk tomorrow, here digitally).

    The first black US president also

    settles accounts

    with Trump

    , who spread many lies about him and did everything in his power to erase Obama's political legacy.

    Can Biden, Obama's former Vice President, save this legacy?

    My colleague René Pfister researched this in the Democratic Party, for example.

    "The election of Biden is a glimmer of hope for America and the world," says René.

    Even if the Parler users see it differently.

    • Read the new SPIEGEL cover story here: Obama's third term in office

    • And here's the text about Parler: In this network, Trump supposedly won the election

    3.

    Cross-associate

    The reports about

    right-wing extremists in the security authorities

    tend not to be conducive to the belief in the rule of law.

    Now the headlines also say that a Berlin public prosecutor ran along with the Corona deniers in August, along with "Reich citizens" and other constitutional enemies.

    The Berlin authorities are examining "legal consequences".

    Just the word "lateral thinker"!

    In my impression, these events are not particularly stringent, but rather cross-country associations - Bill Gates, vaccination terror, Merkel dictatorship - and suddenly reptilian beings enslave our children.

    (Read here what the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Hamburg thinks about "lateral thinkers".)

    Icon: enlarge

    Concurrent

    Photo: Fritz Engel / laif

    This reminds me, freely associated, of the technique with which champions

    press senseless knowledge into their brains

    at

    memory

    championships

    : To do this, they place objects in their minds along a familiar path.

    Remembering then takes place in the form of a mental walk, during which they find the objects at the side of the path.

    Or they move through a memory palace - there nudists ride bicycles through the hallway, there Britney Spears dances on the coffee table, the more unusual the idea, the more memorable.

    This is how memory artists memorize endless rows of numbers or random sequences of playing cards.

    Fascinating and harmless - the opposite of what happens on the "lateral thinker" demos.

    On Saturday they want to march through Karlsruhe.

    • Read the whole conversation here: "We are looking very carefully at whether an extremist movement is emerging here"

    What else is important today

    • Europe passes ten million mark:

      The number of reported corona infections is increasing rapidly in Europe.

      In France, every fourth death is currently associated with Covid-19.

    • Franziska Giffey renounces her doctorate:

      Franziska Giffey will no longer use her doctorate.

      The SPD politician announced.

      She wants to continue her work as family minister.

    • Corona crisis slows down euro drone contract:

      The euro drone is coming - the contract between Germany, France, Spain and Italy is practically negotiated, according to SPIEGEL information.

      But the corona crisis is causing delays.

    • Scheuer flies to Bavaria noticeably often:

      groundbreaking, PR appointments: According to SPIEGEL information, Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer often travels to his Bavarian homeland on business by plane.

    What we recommend today at SPIEGEL +

    • The failures of the German corona policy and their consequences:

      The second wave threatens to hit Germany worse than the first.

      Why is that and what can the federal and state governments do now to save the situation?

    • Jan Marsalek and his ex-buddy from the Libyan secret service:

      Rami El Obeidi is said to have invested millions in a company close to the former Wirecard executive board.

      Now the Libyan wants his money back, but that's probably gone - just like Marsalek.

    • When Germany ran out of fuel:

      Car-free Sunday, lights and heating off in federal authorities: After the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs turned off the oil tap and showed the West its dependence on the world's lubricant.

    Retired

    Photo: dpa film Peter Mountain / dpa

    • The downfall of Johnny Depp:

      He has long been one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

      Then his traction declined, addiction problems and accusations of violence damaged his reputation.

      Now it should be sorted out.

    Which is not so important today

    Icon: enlarge

    Follow his wheel

    Photo: 

    GOTPAP / STAR MAX / IPx / AP

    • He'll be back:

      The actor

      Arnold Schwarzenegger,

      73, at times also known as the Governor of California, is currently recovering from a heart operation, but will soon take on a series role for the first time in his long film career, as reported by several US industry services.

      Accordingly, he plays the role of a spy for Netflix who, together with his daughter, played by

      Monica Barbaro

      , 30, hunts villains all over the world.

      As Sarah Connor said in "Terminator 2": "The unknown future is rolling towards us. And for the first time I look at it with a feeling of hope."

    Typo of the day

    , corrected in the meantime: "Now it's up to her to turn it into a global business - otherwise, in the end, others might win the race."

    Cartoon of the day:

    school hallway humor

    Icon: enlarge Photo: Thomas Plaßmann

    And on the weekend?

    Could you switch over to Netflix again: The new

    "The Crown" season

    shows the royal family as a shark tank in which even a hard bone like

    Margaret Thatcher is

    neatly spat out.

    And in which

    Lady Di

    doesn't stand a chance.

    (Read the full review by my colleague Oliver Kaever here.)

    Icon: enlarge

    Margaret Thatcher as Margaret Thatcher (left, but only pictured), Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher (right)

    Photo: AP

    With this in mind: you have a couple of entertaining hours with the Kron-Joviale.

    Sincerely


    yours, Oliver Trenkamp

    Here you can order the "Lage am Abend" by email.

    Source: spiegel

    All news articles on 2020-11-13

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