Munich: About raids and a §129 procedure against anarchists and the theft of a printing space
What happened?
As previously published, on Tuesday, April 26, in Munich coordinated raids were conducted against anarchists accused of forming a criminal organization (§129). Four apartments were searched (2 of them without any of the accused living there), as well as several basement storage rooms (some of the neighboring cellars of those to the accused were also searched), a printing space, and the anarchist library Frevel.
Coordinated by State Security (K43), a bunch of hooded USK cops with battering rams, partly drawn weapons and some even in chain-mail – yes, whether this cop had lost a bet or whether it was a knight-themed week, we will probably never know – stormed into the apartments at 6 a.m. sharp. This infamous testosterone-fueled bunch even rammed open a door whose key was inserted in the lock on the outside. At some of the apartments, the cops or their colleagues from K123 (Digital Forensics/Telecommunications Surveillance) must have logged into the local WLAN network beforehand, as they seemed to have a precise idea of which devices were connected to the local WLAN network at that time: equipped with power banks and presumably Faraday cages (which serve to shield radio signals) in the form of pouches, the officers immediately snatched the devices, all of them smartphones, and secured them while they were still switched on.
Following this prelude, the investigators of the K43 came to the scene and waved around the search warrants to the people concerned, and introduced all pseudo-witnesses from local municipal authorities that had come along. And then it started: for about six and a half hours, the pigs rummaged through the usual stuff like computers, storage media, and cell phones, but also printers, anarchist publications, “documents and/or files that provide information about left-wing extremist-anarchist ideas”, personal records, financial data, “documents and/or files that provide information about any attack plan of the defendants,” as well as “plans, tools and/or raw materials for the production of bombs, incendiary devices or other objects suitable for carrying out a terrorist attack”; in other words, simply everything. They seized storage media, computers (including those belonging to individuals not accused), printers, personal notes, letter correspondence, and several hundred anarchist publications in a several languages. In addition, they searched intensively for contracts of other rented premises, and probably also demanded to see contracts from the landlords of the basement rooms that were searched.
At the same time, searches also took place in a printing space, several basement rooms, and the anarchist library Frevel, for which both the search warrant and seizure protocols are missing. Here, too, the cops broke in and subsequently changed the locks or left the premises open.
From the anarchist library Frevel, the cops took certain specific publications, posters, stickers, and so on, and also stole the computer printer.
The situation was different in the fully-equipped printing space. There, the cops brought in a truck and a crane and confiscated everything: the risograph (a printing machine) with its associated drums, the cutting machine, the sorting machine, the gluing machine, and even a historic letterpress and dozens of drawers of lead letters, which has all ended up in the cops’ evidence rooms. But that’s not all. Thousands of books, pamphlets, and newspapers were taken, from the words of Malatesta and Kropotkin to those of Bonanno, as well as many current pamphlets and newspapers, some 50,000 sheets of blank paper, ink, and much more. Finally, as a sign of respect, the cops poured a pack of coffee down the sink and made off with their loot in a 40-ton truck.
What is it about?
Three comrades are accused of forming a criminal organization, not only because they are considered “members of the left-wing extremist-anarchist scene” who “reject the existence and the value system of the Federal Republic of Germany and any form of state order” and “regard violence, especially violence against property and/or police officers, as a legitimate means of enforcing their views,” but, above all, because they allegedly produced, published, and distributed the anarchist weekly Zündlumpen. In the documentation, this is followed by a list of 15 excerpts from various issues of Zündlumpen, (which counted a total of 85 numbers), each of which is said to be “content subject to criminal prosecution.” Directly from the pages from the search warrant, we reproduce below a few gems:
“On 10.04.2020, the defendants published the short message “Burn, e-scooter, burn!” on the Zündlumpen website (found here https://zuendlumpen.noblogs.org/post/2020/04/10/.) They wrote about the fire, which occurred on 04.04.2020 in Munich’s Freimann district, of two such motor vehicles, and again on 06.04.2020 on the edge of Munich’s English Garden. They described the vehicles as a “plague” that had to be sabotaged. Through that headline, the defendants condoned the arsons of 04.04.2020 and 06.04.2020 by unknown perpetrators.”
“In issue 61 from April 13, 2020, the defendants called for slashing the tires of police vehicles, setting fire to police vehicles, and creating roadblocks out of burning dumpsters in an article written as a comic strip entitled “Rebellion Against Curfew.” The drawings function as precise instructions for action. The defendants thereby incited anti-constitutional sabotage, damage to property, destruction of important work equipment, arson, and breach of the peace.”
“In issue 62 from April 21, 2020, the defendants published a threatening message to the Bavarian Minister of the Interior Dr. Joachim Herrmann in the article ‘What our (secret) readers think, say and write about us’ with the following wording: ‘Dear Joachim, … I for one have learned from the experiences of other subversives how to deal with with people like you. Discussing with a tyrant? You must know, I am historically on the side of those – theoretically of course 😉 – who preferred to let tyrants bite the dust before their time. And one thing should be clear to you, police chiefs have always been high on this list – even higher than emperors, czars and kings.’ It is to be assumed that the accused were aware that the officer in question takes this threat seriously.”
DNA collection was ordered against the three accused.
More context?
Since all this crap was constructed and contrived in the Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET) at the Munich General Prosecutor’s Office, which was founded in 2017, and information for the underlying investigation is said to have come from the Bavarian LKA and the domestic intelligence agency, it becomes clear that there is more at stake here than a few quotations from an anarchist newspaper that has been discontinued since over half a year.
One could ask themselves whether the ZET and the State Security might be bored or whether they need to prove to themselves that they are useful for something, even if it is only to get on the nerves of anarchists, but perhaps that would be a bit too short-sighted. After all, proceedings based on §§ 129 and 129a have recently experienced a real revival: in more and more instances, cops are initiating §129 proceedings against anarchists or even anti-fascists, but only rarely do they actually result in any charges. Rather, these proceedings are a common pretext to extensively snoop around in specific scenes and surroundings. Raids, which are also directed against non-accused people, are only one of the elements of the police’s structural investigations. Observation, telecommunication monitoring, the installation of bugs, cameras and other equipment to spy on and monitor people often accompany such procedures. It is therefore reasonable to suspect that in this case as well, a specific milieu is being targeted for surveillance.
And then there is the brazen and long-planned theft of an entire printing space and thousands of publications, an obvious attempt to destroy an infrastructure that promotes the spreading of anarchist ideas! If it is supposed to be about a specific newspaper, Zündlumpen, why were other newspapers and publications seized en masse? Why was unprinted paper, ink, and all equipment for the production of books, pamphlets, and newspapers taken away?
Obviously, the cops and the Prosecutor General’s Office (ZET) are after more: they are trying to prevent the spreading of anarchist ideas and stir up paranoia. They attempt this, for example, by confiscating entire archives of anarchist texts and also removing (single!) copies of a newspaper from a bookshelf in a home, along with all sorts of technical equipment.
We are not surprised. Anarchist ideas have always been beyond and against any law, and there is consequently a long history of persecution of anarchist ideas. The recent raids in Munich will certainly not extinguish the flame in our hearts! Nor will they prevent others from grabbing a printer and reprinting all that the cops have confiscated.
If fighting for freedom is a crime, innocence is the worst crime of them all!
Freshly raided and still here,
A few anarchos from Bavaria