It’s difficult to say whether Marcel W. suspects something. It’s hard to tell whether he knows what was going on with his eldest son and his ex-wife on the farm in those minutes. Last Wednesday morning, shortly after 10 a.m., the man in his early 40s was sitting in the auditorium of the venerable meeting room IV of the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig. What is being negotiated here is the banning order against the ethnic-racist “species community”.“, which the Federal Ministry of the Interior issued in 2023. W. was one of those to whom the ban order was addressed at the time.
The defenders of the species community, themselves with a long history in the extreme right-wing scene, present their arguments here at length: The species community is a purely pagan religious community, not a ethnic-racist indoctrination network. It was only reserved for an exclusive circle of people and therefore could not be “combative and aggressive,” as the Interior Ministry claims.
At the same time as the trial in Leipzig, there was a loud bang next to the Ws’ property in Weißenborn in the Burgenland district. So loud that residents report shaking windows and cracks in tiles. The reason was a controlled explosion by special police forces. The officers had previously been masked and arrived with machine guns to storm into the Ws’ yard. This is what witnesses report Central German newspaper.
According to official information, the Halle public prosecutor’s office is investigating a 25-year-old man for violating the Weapons and Explosives Act. They had indications that he might have ordered chemicals online that could be used to mix explosives.
Explosive material in the double-digit kilo range
The emergency services actually found what they were looking for. They seized ammunition and weapons, including crossbows, as well as hard drives and laboratory equipment – as well as, according to the investigators, a lot of “explosive material” – in the double-digit kilogram range.
The experts considered the material to be so dangerous that they did not transport it but instead blew it up on site. At around 10:30 a.m. the sirens wailed in the town and 15 residents were evacuated as a precaution. The volunteer fire department arrived with several vehicles to provide support. Then came the bang.
The discovery of explosives touches on aspects that also play a role in the trial in Leipzig – and which are being questioned by the right-wing extremists’ lawyers: for example, how dangerous the long-term indoctrination of children and young people in the families of the supposedly religious-esoteric community is and how combative and aggressive their attitude is, which, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, characterizes the association.
According to taz information, the suspect is a son of Marcel W., a member of the species community. His mother, W’s ex-wife Janine, lives in the yard where the search took place. Family life seems to be shaped by long-standing connections to the militant neo-Nazi and Holocaut denier scene.
Relevant right-wing family
Mother Janine herself was at a meeting of the “Artgemeinschaft” in November 2018. In the same year she attended a ethnic scene event in Bischofswerda with her son. In 2023 she took part in the national party conference of the NPD in Riesa, Saxony.
From the farm in Weißenborn she ran the “Kyffhäuser Faksimile Publishing House”. Among other things, he published books by the right-wing extremist Jürgen Schwab, who invented a “Reich Citizens’ Movement” at the German College together with Horst Mahler, as well as works by the national Marxist Reinhold Oberlercher, also a pioneer of the Reich Citizens’ Movement. Her new partner is one of the most famous neo-Nazis from Thuringia and was the former area manager there “European Action”a network for Holocaust deniers and right-wing extremists.
The 25-year-old son Thore, who is being investigated by the public prosecutor for a possible violation of the Weapons and Explosives Act, has also been around in the scene. In 2016 he was with his mother at an NPD summer festival, and in 2017 at a meeting of the neo-pagan right-wing “Orphic Circle”. In December 2022 he took part in a “Sturmvogel” camp in Herboldshausen wearing a uniform of the Völkisch-Bündischen association. The petrel emerged from the banned Wiking Youth and indoctrinates young people and children. This is exactly what the Federal Ministry of the Interior is accusing the still banned species community of.
Father Marcel W. now lives in a neighboring village. He was state chairman of the Hesse NPD until 2008 and was one of the key figures in the violent neo-Nazi scene there in the mid-2000s. He was sentenced to four months in prison in 2007 for Holocaust denial, the deciding factors were loud Frankfurter Rundschau apparently also his previous convictions for serious bodily harm, insults and forming armed groups.
Father Marcel W. is mentioned several times in NSU files
Marcel W.’s name also appears several times in the so-called NSU files that examined the role of the Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the course of solving the crimes of the terrorist network of the National Socialist Underground (NSU).. It says in several places about W. that he is said to have taken part in shooting training abroad, including in Switzerland in August 2007. As early as 2003, he took part in a military exercise in the Aschaffenburg district.
And: According to a file entry, Marcel W. is said to have asked how explosives could be made at a meeting of the Free Nationalists of Rhine-Main in July 2006. The NSU files literally say about the meeting: “Marcel W(…) asked how ammonia nitrate could be obtained from fertilizer. Ammonia nitrate is used to produce explosives. He did not give any further explanation as to why W(…) was interested in this or why he needed this information.”
Whether the son came up with a similar idea 20 years later is the subject of the investigation. The State Criminal Police Office takes over this. When asked whether there were other suspects, the Halle public prosecutor’s office remained silent “for investigative reasons.” In any case, the suspect is not in custody because there is no risk of escape or concealment.
Maybe that’s why father Marcel W. didn’t move from the visitor’s seats at the Federal Administrative Court on Wednesday? He stayed until the end of the trial day. Only now and then could you see him making a somewhat frantic phone call outside during breaks. The judges will announce a verdict on February 10th as to whether the dangerous species community remains banned.
Collaboration: Johannes Grunert, Timo Büchner