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Investigators attacked in midsummer. Early in the morning on July 8, more than 200 policemen broke into the homes and shops of twelve right-wing extremists in Germany and Austria. They came across Nazi propaganda and weapons: pistols, bomb guns, ammunition.
“That should be taken very seriously,” Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) told a news conference shortly after the raid. His state had coordinated access.
All the weapons come from illegal deliveries from Croatia. But from who? Who provided the large-scale right-wing extremists with the Balkan smuggling? That became clear a few days after the cross-border police action, when special forces arrested the alleged gunman in a Croatian port city: Alexander R. * (48).
SonntagsBlick investigation shows: The arrested German lived and did business in Switzerland. He has an apartment in Buchs SG and is registered as the managing director of a Schwyz company. According to her own information, she advises clients in the areas of “customs clearance and foreign trade.”
Cell phone and monitored accounts
Investigators had R. in their sights for years, his Swiss cell phone number was monitored. At the request of Germany, both the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the Berne judiciary assisted in the investigation. Both authorities confirm this. They do not give details, the prosecutor of the canton of Bern only writes on request: “A request for legal assistance made in August 2019 concerned investigations into various accounts of the accused.”
It is no coincidence that almost all of Alexander R’s clients in Germany and Austria come from the right-wing extremist scene. He himself was active on the neo-Nazi scene for years. In 2009 he took over the media work on the NPD sponsored “Citizen Initiative to Stop Foreigners”. Later he joined the AfD. Photos show him in June 2016 in Deggendorf (D) during an appearance by Björn Höcke. R. is close to the head of state of the AfD of Thuringia.
In 2018, the alleged arms dealer joined the Schwyz consultancy for customs clearance and foreign trade. That same year he was also attacked by the security authorities. At the time, Europol’s EU law enforcement officers in Croatia blew up a criminal network that was smuggling discarded weapons from the Balkan war into Western Europe.
Croatian police searched 26 houses and arrested 17 suspects. And even then, the traces led to Switzerland. In addition to Kalashnikovs, pistols, hand grenades and a rocket launcher, the investigators also confiscated Swiss money worth 15,100 francs. Thousands and hundreds of bills, tied in bundles. Furthermore, during the coordinated operation, two homes were searched in this country and one person was arrested.
Just for the money?
With the arrest of Alexander R. last summer, the police have probably managed to eliminate the most important middleman suspect. It has yet to be clarified if R. was just about the money or if he specifically wanted to arm the right-wing extremist scene.
Journalists from the ZDF “Frontal 21” program had access to Croatian investigative files. The content is explosive and suggests tremendous suspicion. In a confession of a suspect summarized by interrogators, according to ZDF, it is written: “Alexander R. put weapons in a golf car in his workshop in Germany, some Kalashnikovs, some pistols.” And: “The weapons that he (from Croatia, the publisher) brought to Germany, were intended for the AfD, a right-wing party.”
Croatian weapons for comrades? The AfD rejects the accusations from afar. In a letter, the party admits that the alleged gunsmith joined the AfD in 2016. However, the AfD was unaware of his alleged actions. The man also owed the party “many hundreds of euros in unpaid contributions”, “it had not been available via his email address and postal address for years.” Meanwhile, a process of expulsion from the match against R.
The defendant’s attorney also denies the allegations against his client. R. had not illegally owned or traded weapons. Furthermore, he has since left the right-wing extremist scene.
However, for the Munich prosecutor’s office, the 48-year-old remains the main suspect. He is accused of violating the Law on Arms and Control of War Weapons. An extremist origin cannot be ruled out. So it is probably more than just illegal business.
Other known cases
The Alexander R. case shows once again how neo-Nazis and Reich citizens try to arm themselves in Germany. You can’t keep up: In recent months alone, investigators blew up various networks supplying weapons to right-wing extremists.
More recently, the Austrian police formed a gang which, according to the security authorities, wanted to establish a “radical right-wing militia” in Germany. At a short-notice press conference in mid-December, Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer announced that the Lower Austrian police had succeeded in making one of the “most important weapons finds in decades”.
The scale was enormous: the agents came across a warehouse and containers full of weapons and explosives. More than 70 machine guns and assault rifles, as well as 100,000 rounds of ammunition. The weapons are said to have been acquired by Peter B. * (53), a neo-Nazi from Austria who has been convicted several times.
Despite the efforts of the authorities, the militarization of the extreme right-wing milieu is advancing. And it ends fatally more and more often. Numerous people have been killed in attacks by right-wing extremists in Germany in recent years.
* Names known to publishers
