Neo-Nazi in court docket: S. is claimed to have looked for assassins for the homicide of politicians and scientists on the Darknet | EUROtoday

The defendant Martin S. talks about 2020, in regards to the first 12 months of the corona pandemic. He was at a party in Gera on the time. “With Frank Rennicke,” says S. on Tuesday afternoon within the extremely safe courtroom of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. “Do you have to know him?” asks the presiding decide. “That’s the singer from the right-wing scene,” says S. “It was just Corona time, and people were looking for and finding contacts with like-minded people.” The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is aware of Rennicke solely too nicely and describes him as “one of the longest active and probably best-known songwriters in the German-speaking right-wing extremist music scene.”

The incident reveals the surroundings wherein Markus S. moved and what concepts he shared. The 50-year-old software program developer has been in court docket since Monday. The Federal Prosecutor General in Karlsruhe had the German-Polish nationwide arrested with particular forces in Dortmund in November 2025. The suspicion: “terror financing” and “instructions for committing a serious act of violence that endangers the state”. The state safety company had lengthy counted S. as a part of the Dortmund neo-Nazi scene.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses the defendant S. of getting printed “death lists” with the names of prime German politicians, judges, prosecutors and scientists on the Darknet. The “bounty” for the assassination was to be collected by means of cryptocurrency donations. Under the identify “Assassination Politics” (which interprets roughly as “politics of assassinations”), S. is claimed to have created “criminal facts” and “death sentences” for round 20 folks – with the word: “This platform is used to violently influence politics.”

The investigators got here throughout the names of ex-Chancellors Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Angela Merkel (CDU), former federal ministers Annalena Baerbock (Greens), Karl Lauterbach (SPD), Jens Spahn (CDU), TV presenter Jan Böhmermann and virologist Christian Drosten. Prosecutors who took motion in opposition to AfD politician Björn Höcke have been additionally talked about. “He wanted to encourage political assassins to carry out their own assassination attempts,” mentioned the consultant of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office when the indictment was learn out.

Private addresses of prime politicians collected

In one other record, the investigators discovered details about the personal addresses of round 1,000 folks, together with former Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and his household and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU). According to the general public prosecutor’s workplace, the intention was to search out assassins and “commit murders ourselves”. The free-democratic fundamental order was initially to be “destabilized” by particular person assassins. Then there needs to be a coup after a “coordinated attack” by bigger teams.

The defendant S. sits in a light-colored jogging go well with in entrance of the sixth Criminal Senate of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court and admits on the primary day of the trial that he created the positioning. But he contradicts the impression that he meant it critically: “The page was purely a provocation.”

The presiding decide Jan van Lessen asks who S. needed to impress. “Well, you,” says S. to the decide. The decide famous that S. had put quite a lot of effort into it, the content material was bilingual and, when printed out, would comprise a number of hundred pages of paper. “It had to look realistic,” replies S. The decide asks why he didn’t try this in “Klarnetz”, as a result of he would have reached many extra folks there. “That would have been too obvious and too simple,” objects S..

The web site was out there on the darkish net from May till the arrest in mid-November 2025. The Darknet is a hidden a part of the Internet that may solely be accessed anonymously utilizing particular software program. No cash flowed, however customers acquired in contact. One, beneath the identify “Judenhass1488,” offered directions for constructing explosive gadgets out of on a regular basis objects. Another mentioned he carried out contract killings around the globe and requested for additional contacts.

There are some indications that S. has turn into additional radicalized in the course of the corona pandemic. After the outbreak of the pandemic, he repeatedly took half in demonstrations by so-called lateral thinkers and got here into battle with the regulation on a number of events. The public prosecutor sees the defendant as a “convinced supporter of the racial ideology of National Socialism” who combines it with radical libertarian ideas. He desires to deprive Jews and folks with a migration background of their fundamental rights and exclude them from elections.

The CV initially provides no proof of radicalization for a very long time. As a toddler, S. got here from Poland together with his mother and father and later educated as a telecommunications technician in Braunschweig. He then signed up for the Bundeswehr for a number of years and have become a employees sergeant, acquired a college entrance qualification and accomplished a Master of Science diploma in laptop science. Most not too long ago he labored as a software program developer. The married father of two got here into contact with the neo-Nazi scene there after transferring to Dortmund in 2017. He got here throughout her by means of YouTube movies.

He advised the court docket that he was a “welcome listener and guest” among the many neo-Nazis. S. repeatedly portrays himself as a sufferer of justice. In any case, it turns into obvious that he has been in battle with the police and courts on a number of events. According to his account, what pissed off him most in the course of the Corona pandemic was that almost all of the inhabitants acquiesced to the rules and restrictions: “An act of resistance is meaningless without the people,” says S. In 2025, the web site with the politician’s “death list” appeared.

The course of continues.

Kristian Frigelj stories for WELT on federal and state political points, notably from North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg.