# taz.de -- taz-Recherche auf Englisch: The Firebugs | |
> A German right wing journalist is suspected to have paid for an arson | |
> attack in Ukraine. Did he do that for Vladimir Putin? | |
Bild: After the arson attack: the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Uzhhorod (Ukr… | |
This text was published in German language on February 18th, 2019. The | |
translation was done by Michael Dorrity. The original text can be found | |
[1][here]. | |
Der Original-Text auf Deutsch findet sich [2][hier]. | |
BERLIN / KRAKOW / UZHHOROD taz | The videoclip is short, barely a minute in | |
length, video surveillance captured images of a man at 4:24 AM on the 4th | |
of February 2018 in Uzhhorod, in the far west of Ukraine. | |
The office of the „Transcarpathian Society for Hungarian Culture“ is housed | |
in a salmon-coloured building and two men are standing in front, with one | |
launching an incendiary device. Flames flare up and though nobody is hurt, | |
the attack is politically highly explosive. | |
Reports from the Ukrainian domestic secret service SBU find that two polish | |
neonazis Andrian M. and Tomasz S. checked into in a hotel in Uzhhorod under | |
their own names on the day of the attack. Other video footage shows both | |
men with their faces uncovered, mobile phone data also confirms their | |
location and there are burn marks on their clothes. „Ukrainian authorities | |
have passed their files on to Polish colleagues“ said Hosip Borto, | |
vice-president of the district council of Transcarpathia and the Hungarian | |
Centre for Culture. | |
Both parties admit to the crime, and they name Michal P. as their | |
contractor. P. is a Polish citizen, 30 years old, and a militiaman whose CV | |
boasts a variety of neonazi activity. The organised crime division of the | |
public prosecutor's office in Warsaw is bringing charges against P. for a | |
number of criminal activities, including financing and preparing terrorist | |
crimes abroad. M. and S. are currently facing a number of charges, | |
including first degree arson. | |
On the 14th of January , proceedings against all three began in room L-235 | |
of the criminal division of the district court in Krakow-Podgórze, P.'s | |
place of residence. P admits to the attack but claims to have been incited | |
by a German publicist. His name; Manuel Ochsenreiter, who he claims paid | |
him 1500 euro. | |
Why Transcarpathia is of interest to the Right | |
When the story reached Germany, it ignited serious interest in the AfD | |
party. After all, Manuel Ochsenreiter is not only an important publicist in | |
the far-right media landscape, but also has close connections within the | |
party. Ochsenreiter has worked as a consultant for Bundestag member Markus | |
Frohnmaier since September 2018. All three; P., Ochsenreiter and | |
Frohnmaier, have long been active in radical right networks with a | |
pro-Russian orientation. | |
Transcarpathia is of extreme interest to these networks: Of the 1.25 | |
million residents, 150,000 are ethnically Hungarian. The government in | |
Budapest accuses Ukraine of discriminating against these Hungarians, | |
limiting education in the Hungarian language by way of a school law from | |
2017 for instance. For its part, Kiev does not look kindly on Budapest | |
offering Hungarian passports to Ukrainians with Hungarian roots. Indeed, | |
there is a fear that Hungary could eventually claim parts of the region as | |
its own. | |
Transcarpathia is ideal ground from which to further destabilise Ukraine. | |
Were Ukrainian Neo-Nazis suspected of an attack on the Hungarian minority, | |
Ukraine would have a new conflict on its western front; a thoroughly | |
attractive scenario for Russia. | |
Airport Berlin Tegel: the suspected handover | |
The [3][ARD-Magazine Kontraste] and the online portal T-Online have both | |
seen the Polish legal documents pertaining to the attack in Uzhhorod and | |
issued their first report on the case, according to which the state | |
prosecutors office in Krakow holds Ochsenreiter responsable for financing | |
the attack. A conclusion supported not only by P.'s statement, but also by | |
Whats App-Chats contained in the legal documents. | |
According to these, Michal P. met with Ochsenreiter at Berlin-Tegel airport | |
on the 7th of February 2018, receiving 1,000 euros in cash, having already | |
been advanced 500 to Poland. A chat between P. and his wife appears to | |
confirm this; „And what time are you meeting Manuel?“ she asks. „At 11:30, | |
the return flight is at 19:30, with a change in Warsaw. I'll take a taxi | |
though, I don't want to take the train with so much cash on me“ is the | |
response. | |
Ochsenreiter has refuted these accusations via the website of the far-right | |
magazine Zuerst! of which he is chief-editor. Queries made by the Taz via | |
email have gone unanswered and an attempt to reach him by telephone at | |
Zuerst! got no further than the publisher's headquarters, where we were | |
summarily dismissed; „you'll get no help from me“ we were told. | |
In summer 2016, a year and a half before the attack in Uzhhorod, the Taz | |
had met with a key-player in the case, Michal P., regarding a [4][Report] | |
on paramilitary groups in Poland. | |
Michal P., key-figure in the attack | |
P. mentioned Ochsenreiter of his own accord at the time. According to him, | |
the most important thing for Ochsenreiter was the management of | |
Owarzyszenie Jednostka Strzelecka 2039, or SJS 2039, which can roughly be | |
translated as ‚gun club‘. SJS 2039 is a paramilitary unit, founded by P. | |
himself. One of the two men accused of the arson attack in Uzghorod, Adrian | |
M, has himself previously posted photos of SJS on facebook. Self-proclaimed | |
homeland security squads such as SJS 2039 are numerous in Poland. Though | |
privately organised, the Polish military is attempting to integrate them, | |
and people such as P can carry out shooting exercises for adolescents with | |
full permission from the state. | |
At the time, the SJS 2039 office was a small room in a decrepit villa in | |
Krakow, with ammunition boxes serving as door stops. P was 28 years old at | |
the meeting in summer 2016, in uniform and with his blond hair sharply | |
parted, posing with his rifle, quite unabashed. | |
In conversation with the Taz, P. claimed that the Americans were occupying | |
Germany with military bases up to this day, that Adolf Hitler was a social | |
politician, that globalisation is destroying national states, that | |
multiculturalism is barbaric and that people's distinctive physical | |
appearances should be maintained. He described himself as a nordic, | |
claiming; „when I die, it'll be in battle.“ | |
Against the West – for Russia | |
At the time, P. was a member of an far-right group, calling itself itself | |
„Falanga.“ In 2015, photos of Falanga-men wearing masks, camouflage, and | |
carrying rifles and batons were published on Falanga's message-page. The | |
men can be seen standing on the Ukrainian boarder, allegedly having hunted | |
for refugees. This photo, showing masked men carrying firearms, was posted | |
by the group itself. | |
P. can do nothing with the West, with Russia on the other hand a lot more; | |
a fairly uncommon position for the polish far-right. In summer 2016, P. | |
talked quite frankly to the Taz about the Falanga group's activities on the | |
Russian side of the Donbass region, as well as their fighting for Bashar | |
Al-Assad in Syria. Though he himself was not on the ground, he organised | |
passage for others and took care of the „Press work.“ He also claims to | |
have written the manifesto for the pro-Russian, far-right party Zmiana. | |
Indeed, comments and images on Facebook are proof enough that he was active | |
in the party. Michal P. has a far-right mind-set, closely connected to | |
Putin's Russia: exactly Manuel Ochsenreiter's line. | |
Signs of Manuel Ochsenreiter | |
The first mention of Ochsenreiter's name in connection with the attack, | |
before it was taken up by the court in Krakow, was made by Anton | |
Shekhovtsov. The political scientist, who recently carried out research in | |
Vienna, is one the most astute observers of cooperation between Putin's | |
Russia and the far-right in Western Europe, his book „Tango Noir“ has | |
become a reference work on the subject. At the beginning of 2019, shortly | |
before the trial in Krakow, the polish courts spoke of a „German publicist | |
with close connections to Poland's far-right“ though they did not mention a | |
name. On the 6th January Shekhovtsov tweeted that it may have been a ‚false | |
flag‘ operation, with Ochsenreiter potentially involved. | |
At the beginning of February Shekhovtsov, a gaunt man with a small beard, | |
sat drinking a beer in a hotel lobby in Berlin: „It was obvious to me | |
straight away, this could only be Ochsenreiter“ says Shekhovtsov and | |
explains what led him to this conclusion. | |
Ochsenreiter is quite a colourful character, an online search will show him | |
in quite a variety of settings; posing in sunglasses with Syrian fighters; | |
shaking hands with the former president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and at | |
the new right institute for State Policy in Schnellroda and the Donbass. | |
Ochsenreiter, 42 years old and married to a Syrian woman, grew up in | |
Allgäu. As a young man he was involved with the Junge Union, the German | |
conservative parties youth organization and later in the nationalistic | |
Witikobund. Indeed, during his studies he was part of a duelling | |
fraternity. | |
He ran the department of national affairs at the Junge Freiheit newspaper, | |
working subsequently as chief-editor for the far-right Deutsche | |
Militärzeitschrift, and has run the far-right monthly magazine Zuerst! | |
since 2011. He reported from Serbia, East Ukraine and the Middle East, | |
lauded in his circles as a sort of Peter Scholl-Latour of the New Right. He | |
has given lecture-tours and makes appearances on Russia Today and the | |
Iranian news agency Fars where he has defended Syrian dictator Bashar | |
Al-Assad among others. In 2014, occupying the same stage as Holocaust | |
deniers, he spoke at the „New Horizon“ conference in Tehran on the ‚Israe… | |
lobby in Germany‘. | |
Connections with the fascist ideologue Dugin | |
Political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov has been following Ochsenreiter for | |
some time. According to Shekhovtsov, Ochsenreiter is playing a crucial role | |
in taking Western Europe's far right toward Moscow. He claims the German | |
National met Alexander Dugin at the end of 2012. Dugin, a fascist ideologue | |
praised as a visionary of neo-euroasian thought, has been referred to by | |
Ochsenreiter as a ‚fatherly friend.‘ „After that“ says Shekhovtsov | |
„Ochsenreiter's pro-kremlin activities began in earnest.“ Ochsenreiter also | |
appeared regularly as a commentator in Russian state media at the time. | |
The proximity of Ochsenreiter's gang with other right-wing, Russia-friendly | |
groups can be seen in a photo taken in Warsaw in 2015. Four men sit on a | |
podium in front of a black flack on which two rifles are crossed over a | |
white circle. One of the men is Ochsenreiter, on his right is Michal P., | |
currently facing charges for the arson attack. The head of Falanga, P.'s | |
nazi-group, is also there. The fourth man is Mateusz Piskorski. | |
Piskorski, founder of the Zmiana party, for which P. was also active, is | |
another key figure in the network of pro-Russian associations who | |
collaborate with the far-right in Europe. His organisation „The European | |
Centre for Geopolitical analysis“ is crucial, and was similarly invited to | |
the podium discussion in Warsaw. The main task of the centre is to organise | |
election observation missions for western politicians in Eastern Europe, | |
particularlyin separatist areas loyal to the Kremlin, or in areas annexed | |
in breach of international law such as Crimea. Enjoying support from | |
members of parliament from the AfD, the Austrian FPÖ or the Italian Lega | |
Nord, the Kremlin's horizons are thus expanded. „In March 2014, Piskorski | |
invited Ochsenreiter to observe the so-called referendum in Crimea“, says | |
Shekhotsov „that was his entry into Crimea.“ | |
An association, which no longer exists? | |
In April 2016 Piskorski and Ochsenreiter founded an organisation; the | |
„German Centre for Euroasian Studies,“ with Ochsenreiter's subsequent | |
employer Markus Frohnmaier present at the launch. This is where the AfD | |
reentered the game. Recently questioned about the association, Frohnmaier | |
claimed it no longer exists, despite it still being listed in the | |
Associations Register. Ochsenreiter is chairman, and Piskorski deputy | |
chairman. The latter was arrested on charges of spying for Russia shortly | |
after the launch of the association and has been in custody since. He was | |
taken to court for the first time in April 2018. | |
The term ‚Eurasia‘ was coined by the Kremlin, a cipher for efforts to push | |
back US influence in Europe. The goal is a „Europe from Lisbon to | |
Vladivostok.“ For members of the far-right such as Pickorski, Ochsenreiter | |
or P., forging closer ties to authoritarian Russia is the most effective | |
way to liberate Europe from everything they despise; liberalism, | |
homosexuality, Islam, Blacks, Jews, ‚globalisation‘ and ‚elites‘. Their | |
mentor is Alexander Dugin, the Russian theorist who allegedly whispers in | |
Putin's ear and to whom Piskorski and Ochsenreiter are equally close. | |
Dugin's books are published in Germany by Dietmar Munier, also responsible | |
for publishing the monthly far-right magazine Zuerst! of which Ochsenreiter | |
is chief-editor. | |
As a pro-Russian orientation begins to permeate the AfD, the party becomes | |
more and more appealing to Ochsenreiter, who continues to make contacts | |
within it. During a regional congress on Russia in Saxony-Anhalt, | |
Ochsenreiter was on stage next to State-Chair André Poggenburg. He was also | |
present as the party's fraction in the regional parliament signed a treaty | |
calling for the repeal of sanctions on Russia. He additionally accompanied | |
AfD politicians on visits to Russia, Donetsk and Crimea. | |
Ochsenreiter's former employer: An AfD lawmaker | |
Ochsenreiters contact with Markus Frohnmaier, a 28 year old AfD politican | |
who currently has a seat in the Bundestag, is particularly intimite. | |
Frohnmaier was president of the AfD youth organisation Junge Alternative, | |
after which he served as spokesman for the former AfD president Frauke | |
Petry, moving on to work for Alice Wiedel, currently president of the | |
parliamentary faction. In June 2016, Ochsenreiter praised Frohnmaier in a | |
lengthy Zuerst! article as „the most popular young politician in the | |
party.“ The article also examined visits to Belgrade, Saint Petersburg and | |
Donetsk, on which Frohnmaier was accompanied by editors of Zuerst!. | |
Frohnmaier was similarly delighted with Ochsenreiter, whose far-right views | |
present no problem to him. „What's relevant is the work done here in the | |
Bundestag“ which in an interview with the taz in November 2018 Frohnmaier | |
characterised as very good. Zuerst! was a trusted medium for high ranking | |
party members and in a further interview with the taz in January, | |
Frohnmaier claimed to value Ochsenreiter, his experiences and his good work | |
a great deal. | |
At this point Shekhovtsov had long since published his tweet on | |
Ochsenreiter's possible involvement in the arson attack in Uzhhorod. As | |
accusations emerged, Frohnmaier stood by his colleague, proclaiming that | |
one is still innocent till proven guilty. He only held this line for a | |
couple of days however. By mid-January they had apparently agreed, on | |
Ochsenreiter's initiative, to a mutual separation and by mid-February an | |
end to their working relationship. Frohnmaier no longer wishes to be quoted | |
with regard to Ochsenreiter. | |
Reports from Berlin's public prosecutor. | |
In the meantime, the Public Prosecutor's office in Berlin has also issued a | |
report. In response to enquiries made by the taz, they confirmed there is | |
initial suspicion of arson. The investigation however will take time and a | |
letter of request has been sent to Poland. In the meantime, no evidence of | |
further involvement of German nationals exists. | |
Zuerst! publisher Munier issued a statement at the beginning of February | |
calling for Ochsenreiter's exoneration. The accusations were nothing more | |
than an ‚attempted character-assassination,‘ a ‚Polish-Ukrainian campaign | |
of disinformation.‘ „I am quite sure“ said Munier „that the American se… | |
service is also involved.“ | |
It is also possible that Ochsenreiter used Munier's paper to give the | |
attack the appropriate political spin. On the day of the attack, a headline | |
in Zuerst! ran „Budapest calls for an OSCE mission in West Ukraine“. The | |
article connects the attack with the law strongly limiting the use of | |
Hungarian in classrooms, which had just been ratified at the time. The take | |
is quite clear, Ukraine is the aggressor; precisely the same image which | |
Russia promotes. | |
Writing from Casablanca, Ochsenreiter published a statement on Facebook on | |
the 11th February 2019, decrying Ukraine as a „failed state with a decaying | |
economy and a dysfunctional, corrupt government“ and speaking of an „absurd | |
suspicion, the result of an obvious secret service campaign.“ | |
He then posted messages of solidarity received from pro-Russian politicians | |
in Moldova and Italy, from Jürgen Elsässer, chief editor for Compact, as | |
well as from the fascist, Russian theorist Alexander Dugin; his ‚fatherly | |
friend‘. Dugin, for his part, declared the ‚campaign‘ against Ochsenreiter | |
evidence that we are „living in the middle of a total information war,“ the | |
other side are seeking „the complete economic and social extermination of | |
individuals who dare to successfully fight the western liberal mainstream“. | |
Contributors: Bernhard Clasen, Gabriele Lesser | |
15 Mar 2019 | |
## LINKS | |
[1] /Rechtsextreme-pro-russische-Netzwerke/!5571037 | |
[2] /Rechtsextreme-pro-russische-Netzwerke/!5571037 | |
[3] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/afd-ochsenreiter-anschlag-101.html | |
[4] /Paramilitaerische-Gruppen-in-Polen/!5412371 | |
## AUTOREN | |
Sabine am Orde | |
Christian Jakob | |
Christina Schmidt | |
## TAGS | |
taz in English | |
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) | |
Schwerpunkt Europe's Far Right | |
Right Wing Extremism | |
Intelligence | |
Schwerpunkt Europe's Far Right | |
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taz international | |
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