Dubravko Mandic rumbles. “I will speak at any time,” the lawyer complains into his microphone. “I’m not giving you the floor at the moment,” the presiding judge reprimands him. It is Friday morning, shortly after 10 a.m., and the right-wing lawyer Mandic has taken a seat with 18 other lawyers in the high-security room of the Dresden Higher Regional Court. A few minutes ago the trial against the alleged terrorist group the “Saxon Separatists” opened there. And as it began in the first few minutes, it will continue.
Mandic represents the defendant Kurt Hättasch, AfD politician from Grimma in Saxony. Even before the trial began, he had spoken of an “explicitly political process” and “constructed evidence”, complained about “enemy criminal law” and “preventive elimination of supposedly dangerous people” as well as the “silencing” of his client.
He probably wanted to trivialize, trivialize and frame differently what is now being heard in the courtroom on Friday and in the past weeks and months media reported about his client and the other defendants.
Suspected terrorist group with Nazi ideas
Essentially, the accusation is that they formed a right-wing extremist terrorist group with a total of 20 members and carried out paramilitary exercises. That they had prepared for ethnic cleansing of larger areas in East Germany after a feared collapse of the state order on “Day X”, that they had planned the liquidation of state representatives and had weapons.
Mandic had already contradicted this in a press release on Friday morning and called for an acquittal. Other defense attorneys announced statements, some of whom started on Friday.
For example, Martin Kohlmann, who represents Jörg S., who is accused of ring leadership. Kohlmann called for the proceedings to be discontinued. “I see terrorism against eight young people and their families. The terrorists are sitting there,” he rumbled, pointing to the bench with the representatives Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The charges are “completely vague” and the allegations are “plucked out of thin air.” In any case, no one else would have known anything about what his client is said to have explained to an FBI man in chat groups. The paramilitary exercises? “Scouting at an average level.”
In any case: “Saxon separatists”, by which his client did not mean a separate group, but supposedly explained what others in Germany were up to, i.e. the “Free Saxons” – i.e. the right-wing extremist micro-party that lawyer Kohlmann himself founded.
Numerous defenders with connections to the right-wing scene
It is a right-wing political spectacle that lasts throughout the day. Many of the lawyers sitting in the courtroom on Friday are themselves known for a biography in the right-wing scene: alongside Kohlmann and Mandic, for example Wolfram Nahrath, former chairman of the now banned Wiking Jugend, once active for the NPD and the also banned Heimattreu Deutschen Jugend as well as defender of the NSU helper Ralf Wohlleben. Günther Herzogenrath-Amelung also appeared as a defender on Friday. He had already defended the National Front in the early 1990s.
Even before the charges were read out, the first few hours were about whether the public should be excluded because some of the defendants were still minors at the time of the crime. The judges rejected this request.
The defendants, who are now 22 to 26 years old, were led into the courtroom in handcuffs that morning. Except for Karl Jonas K., who sat down in a white shirt and shoulder-length hair, everyone wore dark clothing and short hair with meticulously combed side partings. Hättasch presented himself with a twisted mustache and loden jacket with two black, red and gold pins on his lapel.
The hall was full. Eight defendants, 19 lawyers, five judges, four juvenile court assistants, three representatives of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. In addition to the numerous media representatives, a well-known right-wing streamer and AfD member of the state parliament Jörg Dornau also gathered in the rows of spectators.
Father Hans-Jörg S. sees secret services at work
Hans-Jörg S. junior, the father of the two defendants Jörg and Jörn S., also sat among the spectators wearing a green military parka, surrounded by men with bald heads and stable physiques. He is himself a convicted right-wing extremist who also used to organize paramilitary exercises; his father, in turn, was once a member of the FPÖ.
Did he help his sons? “No, I’m too old for that now,” S. told the taz on the sidelines of the hearing. He speaks of an “intelligence operation” through which the allegations against his sons were constructed. A “lie from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution”. Of course he hopes for an acquittal.
The interest in this case is also due to its political explosiveness for the AfD – and the implications for a possible ban procedure. Next to Mandic’s client Hättasch, who remains a member of the AfD faction in the Grimma city council despite his imprisonmentAfD members Hans-Georg P. and Kevin R. are also accused. Hättasch and R. worked for the AfD state parliament member Alexander Wiesner.
After the Arrests on November 5, 2024 The federal level of the party quickly distanced itself from the suspected right-wing terrorists and announced an expulsion process. However, according to taz information, this has not yet been completed.
But not everyone in the party exercised so much caution. Ten months after the arrests According to a report by t-online, the AfD Leipziger Land district association drummed up support for a demo and called for it in a Facebook postwhich was soon deleted again: “Freedom for Kurt Hättasch, Kevin R(…) and all political prisoners”. The Thuringian AfD politician According to a report in Die Welt, Björn Höcke visited Hättasch’s wife and spoke of a “decent” family and “staged” arrests. Similar said an AfD parliamentary group member from Grimma to the taz this week.
Prosecution sees formation of a terrorist group
From the Federal Prosecutor General’s point of view, it sounds different. Accordingly, the “Saxon Separatists” are said to have been founded in February 2020. The total of around 20 members were united by “racist, anti-Semitic ideas”, a “deep rejection” of local democracy and the belief that Germany was facing a “collapse”.
They did not actively work on the collapse, but prepared for this point in time in order to then establish a Nazi-like state in parts of East Germany. They trained for urban warfare in forests and on an abandoned airfield near Brandis, organized night marches and practiced using weapons at shooting ranges.
Hättasch is also accused of attempted murder and violating the weapons law. When he was arrested, the hunter allegedly came out of his house with a rifle and ran towards a police officer. He fired two shots, one of which injured Hättasch in the jaw. He had to be treated in hospital. According to his lawyer, Hättasch thought he would be attacked by Antifa and never intended to shoot the police.
Caught in right-wing terrorist online networks
Jörg S., who is accused of being the ringleader, is said to have radicalized the group. In Telegram chats he is said to have written about a “genocide against whites” and that the “problems would definitely be minimized” if the “Jews were gone.” And: “Only a complete revolution can change anything.”
Jörg S. is said to have been active in an international online network of young neo-Nazis, the “National Socialist Brotherhood”, an offshoot of the “Nuclear Weapons Division”. This belongs to the so-called “Siege” scenewhich goes back to the neo-Nazi James Mason. The main idea behind it: The existing system must be destroyed through murders, attacks and other acts of violence in order to be able to build a new state based on the National Socialist model.
This is roughly what the “Saxon Separatists” are said to have prepared for, according to the indictment.
Connections to AfD, NPD, III. Weg and Kubitschek
In addition to the striking selection of well-known lawyers, the biographies of the defendants point to a network that testifies to political and family roots in the right-wing extremist scene. And not just for the S. family. Kurt Hättasch also attended a seminar in 2022 together with his wife – daughter of the former Saxon comradeship leader Thomas Sattelberg Right-wing extremist Götz Kubitschek in Schnellroda.
In June 2024, Hättasch took part in one with co-defendant Kevin R Solstice celebration in Strahwalde, Saxony together with ethnic groups and neo-Nazis. In Grimma, he and a co-accused planned a house project at the train station, which he was responsible for purchasing a loan of 100,000 euros from former Berlin Finance Senator Peter Kurth (CDU), who knew the two through fraternity contacts.
Despite their young age, other defendants appeared years ago at AfD, NPD and III demonstrations. On the way, as photos available to the taz show. Jörn S. is said to have traveled to Budapest in the spring of 2024 for the “Day of Honor”, which has served as a Europe-wide networking meeting for the right-wing extremist scene for years.
Negotiations will take place at least until the end of the year
Hättasch had previously contradicted the charges in a “political statement” and a “prison diary” that were published on a blog by Götz Kubitschek. There was neither a terrorist group nor was the AfD right-wing extremist. There is nothing against him, on the contrary: “The state is increasingly brazenly attacking its citizens.”
Will this defense strategy work? In any case, there was enough for the investigating judges at the Federal Court of Justice to confirm the eight arrest cases. In the end, the judges decide. But that will still take some time: almost 70 days of negotiations have already been scheduled until December 2026.