Listen to ‘Day X’

A five-part audio series that examines the rise of a new brand of extremism in Germany.

A photo of Franco A. at a ceremony at the Saint-Cyr military academy in France.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

A German soldier, a faked Syrian identity and a loaded gun in an airport bathroom cracked the door open to a network of far-right extremists inside the German military and the police. It’s a story about a changing national identity — and the backlash against it — raising a question that democracies across the world are waking up to: What happens when the threat is coming from within?

Listen to the series below, and read the transcripts by clicking on the icon to the right of the audio player. For more information on the series, visit nytimes.com/dayx.

In January 2017, a maintenance worker discovered a loaded gun in a bathroom in the Vienna airport. After setting a trap, the police arrest its owner, a German military officer who turns out to be part of a nationwide network of far-right extremists.

Day X Poster

Released on May 28, 2021.
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transcript

Released on May 28, 2021.

broadcaster

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

OK, let’s go down here.

This is where it happened. Should we go inside?

kaitlin roberts

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

One day in January 2017, a maintenance guy was doing his daily round at the Vienna airport. He walks into a single person bathroom—

katrin bennhold

Ah. And this is it.

katrin bennhold

—and opens a small door on the back wall to access some pipes. And inside—

katrin bennhold

That’s where they found the gun.

katrin bennhold

—there’s an old black pistol, and it’s loaded.

So he takes the gun to the police, and the police set a trap to see who comes to get it. About two weeks later, someone does.

The man they arrest identifies himself as an officer in the German military. And after hours of questioning, they let him go.

When they run his fingerprints for a routine check, they come up with a match. But these fingerprints are not registered to a military officer. They’re registered to a Syrian refugee.

This sets off alarm bells and an investigation that eventually spans three countries and multiple intelligence agencies. And what they find is that in 2015, as hundreds of thousands of refugees were arriving in Germany, this German military officer disguised himself and managed to fool the authorities into believing he was one of those refugees.

For over a year, he had been living a double life.

The question was, why?

So they arrest him again, and in a series of raids, they find stolen ammunition, a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and a notebook with the names of liberal politicians and activists. And they start to piece together a story, that he’d been planning an attack that was meant to be blamed on his fake refugee identity, spark a national backlash against refugees, and trigger enough civil unrest to ultimately bring down the Federal Republic of Germany.

He denies this.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But—

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—the story about this military officer, known publicly as Franco A, catches fire in the press.

archived recording

Authorities say the suspect was conspiring to assassinate top politicians and then put the blame on refugees.

katrin bennhold

And the military panics.

archived recording

Investigators found now parts of a gun engraved with a swastika in the—

katrin bennhold

They start searching barracks for evidence of far right extremism.

archived recording

Soldiers at several barracks were caught with World War II German army memorabilia.

katrin bennhold

And they find plenty.

archived recording

Forty-nine items of memorabilia were found.

katrin bennhold

The defense minister publicly states—

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—that the German military has a problem.

archived recording

They have looked into almost 300 soldiers with possible neo-Nazi views.

katrin bennhold

It’s a problem that has only grown more urgent.

archived recording

The Capitol riots of January 6 put a spotlight on military extremism.

katrin bennhold

And not just in Germany.

archived recording

The U.S. military says it is taking action to address extremism within their ranks.

The Pentagon says the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol was a wake up call.

Ordering a service wide stand.

—stand down to admit they had a problem.

Never has this been more important than now, as we face potential threats from within.

katrin bennhold

The story that started with a German military officer and a gun in an airport bathroom and that is still unfolding all these years later is raising a question that democracies across the world are waking up to. What happens if the threat is coming from within?

From The New York Times, I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is Day X.

katrin bennhold

So should I just go? You tell me.

kaitlin roberts

Yeah, you can just go.

katrin bennhold

OK.

katrin bennhold

When I first heard the story of Franco A, I was in London, covering a string of Islamist terrorist attacks. And I remember thinking how bizarre and sinister it all seemed, a military officer dressing up as a Syrian refugee to assassinate someone in the hopes of bringing down the government. And then over a year later, after I was posted to Berlin—

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—the story took another turn.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Reports started saying that Franco A. was part of a nationwide far right network—

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—with dozens of soldiers and police officers all organized on encrypted Telegram chats. Some even call this network—

archived recording

Shadow army inside the German army, the Bundeswehr.

katrin bennhold

—a shadow army.

That really stopped me, because in Germany, a shadow army evokes history.

^archived recording^ (adolf hitler)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

In the decade before Hitler came to power, far right paramilitary groups plotted coups, assassinated politicians and eventually supported the rise of the Nazis and the death of democracy.

[CROWD CHEERING]

So in March 2019, I called the Defense Ministry to get some hard numbers of how many far right extremists had been identified in the military. The senior official I talked to told me that the number was small and falling. The most recent figure he had was four, four soldiers who had been confirmed as far right extremists in the entire military. And when I asked about Franco A. and the network he was allegedly a part of, he said, we don’t see any networks. The whole thing just didn’t add up. It seemed like they were either misunderstanding the problem or they were willfully blind to it.

[dial tone]

So—

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

[hangup tone]

katrin bennhold

—I started doing my own reporting.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—to figure out if there really is a far right network inside the military.

katrin bennhold

You mentioned networks.

katrin bennhold

And if so—

katrin bennhold

How would you qualify—

katrin bennhold

Just how serious or dangerous is it?

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And right away, I learned that the committee in parliament that deals with intelligence oversight, they were looking into this, too, and also into whether the intelligence agencies have been taking this issue seriously enough. But the report they’re working on is top secret, so they’re not going on the record.

katrin bennhold

My contact here has arrived. I may have to stop recording, but I’m just going to see how far I get.

katrin bennhold

I talk with intelligence officials and law enforcement—

katrin bennhold

OK. To be continued.

katrin bennhold

—and get my hands on a number of evidence files from the Franco A. investigation.

katrin bennhold

Here’s an interesting thing about this gun.

katrin bennhold

I read several police interviews with soldiers. And it’s clear that some sort of network exists. They’re connecting on Telegram. They’re meeting in person. And at least two of the administrators, including the guy who started it all, were soldiers of Germany’s most elite military unit, the K.S.K., basically Germany’s Navy SEALs.

[dial tone]

So I reach out to the K.S.K., and after several requests, I get an interview with the unit’s commander.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

We meet at a restaurant near the base, and he shows up late.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He says he was held up because he spent the last four hours questioning one of his men about a party where half a dozen K.S.K. soldiers were accused of flashing Hitler salutes.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

This is part of a problem he openly acknowledges.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He admits that the K.S.K. struggles with extremism more than other units.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And when I ask him if there really is a shadow army—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—he tells me he doesn’t know. But it worries him.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Not just as the head of the special forces, but also as a citizen.

[dial tone]

Around the same time—

katrin bennhold

Andrei, hi.

katrin bennhold

—I get a hold of the K.S.K. guy who started the Telegram network Franco A was a part of.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

His name is André Schmitt but on Telegram, he goes by Hannibal.

katrin bennhold

Is that a real name that you—

andre schmitt

It’s a nickname. I have many nicknames.

katrin bennhold

When I talk with him, he was no longer in the military. And as for a shadow army—

andre schmitt

That’s crazy if you have really a shadow army in the country.

katrin bennhold

—he just rolls his eyes at me.

andre schmitt

It’s bullshit.

katrin bennhold

The story he tells is that he created this Telegram network for soldiers and police officers.

andre schmitt

—to have better information than the normal people on the street.

katrin bennhold

And it really exploded in 2015.

andre schmitt

The immigrants came.

katrin bennhold

That’s the year that hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war in Syria and Afghanistan came into Germany. It was a moment that, for many Germans, was a point of pride, a kind of redemption for the country that had committed the Holocaust. But it was also a big moment for the far right, who used it to recruit and to stoke fear.

andre schmitt

My goal was to inform the others.

katrin bennhold

In Hannibal’s case, he claimed he had privileged information. He’d post about supposed threats from terrorists—

andre schmitt

—or ISIS—

katrin bennhold

—sleeper cells, immigrant gangs.

andre schmitt

We know it from the—

katrin bennhold

I’ve seen a federal police interview where he actually admits to deliberately inflating these supposed threats.

andre schmitt

And then it got bigger and bigger and bigger.

katrin bennhold

And as the network grew—

andre schmitt

Take it in different parts from different districts of the country.

katrin bennhold

—Hannibal organized it into geographic territories, with branches in the North, South, East, and West, sort of like the German military. But the fate of this network changed abruptly because of one member in the Southern branch, Franco A.

It was immediately after Franco A.‘s arrest that Hannibal ordered all chats in all branches be deleted. Soon after, investigators raid the homes of several members of the Northern branch. And in these raids, they find weapons, ammunition, eventually, enough evidence to open a federal terrorism investigation into this group.

So I head up north to find out what was going on with the northern branch, a group that called itself Nordkreuz, Northern Cross.

I knock on a lot of doors. I talk to several members, a reservist, a decorator, a shooting instructor, a lawyer, the owner of a military accessory shop. Some of them only talk on background. One orders me off his property. Most of them tell me they meet regularly, sometimes at the local shooting range or at one of their houses.

They talk about politics or their concerns about immigration and how they don’t trust the government or the mainstream media to tell them what’s really going on. And pretty much everyone I talk to says they’re preparing for a crisis they’re sure is coming. They all have weapons, and they claim they just want to protect themselves and their families.

But there’s one guy—

katrin bennhold

Ah, yup, look. There’s a sign.

katrin bennhold

—who tells a different story.

katrin bennhold

That’s where we need to go.

katrin bennhold

A story that, according to several senior officials I’ve talked with, matches allegations at the heart of the terrorism investigation that brought me here.

kaitlin roberts

Is it going to be weird if I’m wearing all of this gear when we meet him?

katrin bennhold

I mean, no, I think it’s OK. I think it’s OK.

katrin bennhold

The source producer, Kaitlin Roberts, and I come to meet used to be a member of Nordkreuz. And for a long time, he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk.

katrin bennhold

Basically, neither his wife nor his employer can know that we’re talking to him, nor his former far right friends, which means that he had to fit us into his workday, and the only place he could meet was in his car in a car park.

katrin bennhold

He’s distance himself from the group and wants to keep a low profile. But in the end, he agrees to an interview, so long as he remains entirely anonymous.

christopher schuetze

If he says hi, it’s fine, right? Because we’re getting it—

katrin bennhold

So we bring along our colleague, Chris—

katrin bennhold

He doesn’t want any of his voice.

katrin bennhold

—to translate and act as the source’s voice on tape.

kaitlin roberts

I think that might be him. Good? OK, here we go.

katrin bennhold

We all get into the source’s car, roll up the windows—

katrin bennhold

Yeah. So maybe we can start by identifying yourself.

katrin bennhold

—and Chris starts to translate the source’s story.

christopher schuetze

So I was a member of a chat group from 2015 to 2017.

katrin bennhold

It starts in a familiar place.

christopher schuetze

There was a big change in 2015.

katrin bennhold

He says, like a lot of the other members I talked to—

christopher schuetze

—the big lineups at the border—

katrin bennhold

—that he was worried about immigration. He didn’t trust the politicians or the media.

christopher schuetze

—not a very safe feeling.

katrin bennhold

And so when a friend told him about Nordkreuz—

christopher schuetze

Then I joined the group.

katrin bennhold

—he joined.

katrin bennhold

Yeah.

Maybe I’ll just ask generally. So tell us about the first time that you physically met people in the group. [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And he tells me what happens at his first meeting.

christopher schuetze

The first meeting that I went to, there were about 15 people there. And it’s like any of those meetings where you’re new to a new club or a new association. You sit down, you have your coffee in front of you, you’re sitting at a big conference table, and then as one of the first things was to introduce oneself. And it was very clear to me that part of the reason for this meeting was so that we got to know each other in real life so that we could look each other in the eyes and that we would know who we were.

katrin bennhold

Do you remember what was discussed during that first meeting?

christopher schuetze

So the agenda on the first meeting, I remember, was an attack. It was the Bataclan.

katrin bennhold

He says they talked about the recent terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 when ISIS gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people. It was the deadliest attack in France since World War II. Reports at the time said, and prosecutors later confirmed, that several of the attackers had entered Europe posing as Syrian refugees.

christopher schuetze

And out of this came the big question. What would happen if an attack like that would happen in Germany? And can we protect our own families?

katrin bennhold

And then he says the group starts talking about how to prepare for something they call—

christopher schuetze

Day X.

katrin bennhold

Day X.

christopher schuetze

The day where there’s some kind of attack.

katrin bennhold

Day X is this notion that has been popular with the far right for a long time. It’s supposed to represent this day when the Democratic order collapses and they take over, and in their telling, save the nation. Other far right movements have their own version of it. For QAnon, it’s the storm or the great awakening. And the Nazis, of course, talked about the rebirth of the German nation.

christopher schuetze

For us, it was Day X was the day when an attack would knock out infrastructure, or there would be a big attack in one of the cities in the states. And it would lead to the breakdown of public order.

katrin bennhold

The trigger for Day X can be anything, a power cut, a natural catastrophe, a terrorist attack, a pandemic.

katrin bennhold

So the group was preparing for this Day X. What exactly were you guys doing at the time?

christopher schuetze

A suggestion was made to collect money for food and diesel.

katrin bennhold

The source says that throughout 2016, Nordkreuz members prepare for Day X. They stockpile food, fuel, weapons, and ammunition—

christopher schuetze

And we would talk about a place that we could hide.

katrin bennhold

—and secure a safe house.

christopher schuetze

—an old, disused vacation camp surrounded by forest.

katrin bennhold

The group also doubles in size.

katrin bennhold

Did you ever see anything that worried you in the communication.

christopher schuetze

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

And as it grows, he says—

christopher schuetze

The comments became harsher and harsher.

katrin bennhold

—so does its anger.

christopher schuetze

And there was this feeling that the politicians have to go. They’re destroying our country, they’re destroying our culture, they’re taking away our land. Wait till the next election. They will be gone.

kaitlin roberts

You want to say what we’re doing, why the car’s on?

katrin bennhold

Yeah, exactly.

So we’re— our source has another meeting, and so we’re going to use the time on the road to keep talking.

christopher schuetze

There was, in this group, people who went so far as to say that one should make examples out of these German politicians. There was a lawyer in our group, and he had a file that listed politicians or activists who were pro-refugees or who were seen somehow to be welcoming to refugees. And looking at the chats, it was clear that these names were people who were considered enemies, enemies who, at some future date, would have to be dealt with.

katrin bennhold

And then the source talks about something that happened at the end of 2016, when a few members of the group meet at a highway truck stop.

christopher schuetze

So I heard about this meeting. So there was the lawyer and also policemen and a couple reservists. They met. It was a casual meeting, but at some point, the conversation turned to, what should we do with the people in these files? And there was somebody who asked, when that moment of crisis arrives and the social order collapses, how can we transport these people from their homes to a suitable place where they can be given some kind of a trial and be punished?

katrin bennhold

Then he tells me something that happened at another meeting.

christopher schuetze

There was a list being handed around and talked about, where there was sort of an itemized list with other things needed for that Day X. And they included things like body bags and quicklime. At the time, there was some conversation about maybe it being used to get rid of excrement, or the body bags may be used in foul weather.

katrin bennhold

And do you buy this innocent motive for ordering body bags?

christopher schuetze

I mean, I have to say, the body bags, I see that as extremely damaging, because body bags serve only one purpose, and that is to put dead people inside.

But it should be noted that those were two people who really pushed this, and the majority of the group weren’t pushing for this.

katrin bennhold

Whether or not it was really just a couple of people, their plan never came to be. After the chat group was shut down, investigators kept their focus on the lawyer and a police officer who were working together to compile those lists of enemies. And on one of those lists was a man—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—named Heiko Böhringer.

katrin bennhold

So maybe you could just start by introducing yourself.

heiko böhringer

Yeah. Hi, I’m Heiko. I live in the north of Germany. My family lives here, my children grew up here, and it’s a good place to live and work. For me, it is paradise on Earth.

katrin bennhold

I called him at home.

katrin bennhold

That’s really nice, so—

katrin bennhold

And I ask him to tell me the story—

katrin bennhold

How did you get into local politics?

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—of how he ended up on this list.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Heiko says that 10 years ago when he got involved in local politics—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—he was really into the idea of renewable energy, which, along with immigration, has become a source of anger for the far right in Germany.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And not long after he gets elected on the city council—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—he gets a letter in the mail.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

It’s a death threat, which basically said something would happen to him and his wife if he didn’t back down on his renewable energy ideas.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

So he calls the police.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And within an hour, they arrive at his house and check things out.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Later that afternoon, they return. They ask him where all the doors are, where he sleeps.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

They even draw a sketch of his house, saying that, if ever there were an emergency, they could react quickly and better protect him.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

By the time they leave, Heiko says—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—he felt reassured.

After that, he doesn’t get any more threats, and he kind of stops worrying about it.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Until 2019, when he gets a notice from the federal police, summoning him as a witness—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—in connection with a terrorism investigation.

katrin bennhold

What was your reaction? [SPEAKING GERMAN]

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

The notice names two suspects, and Heiko doesn’t recognize either of the names.

So he googles them and finds out they’re both linked to Nordkreuz.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Heiko had heard about Nordkreuz before and thought they were basically harmless—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—just some crazy guys who play adventure games and do shooting practice out in the woods.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But he’s seeing articles about how this group was preparing for Day X. And he realizes—

heiko böhringer

Oh, shit.

katrin bennhold

—whatever is going on is pretty serious.

katrin bennhold

Did you have any idea why they wanted to ask you anything?

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And when he meets with investigators—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—they start putting pictures in front of him, asking, do you know this person? Do you know that person? He doesn’t know any of them.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And then they show him something else.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

It’s a sketch of his house, the one police drew when he got the death threat.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

They tell him they found it when they raided the homes the two Nordkreuz members who were under investigation.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

One of them is a police officer who worked in Heiko district. When Heiko sees this, he’s shaken. Why did a sketch that was drawn by an officer, who said he was trying to protect him, end up with another officer who was a member of Nordkreuz?

katrin bennhold

What did the police officers tell you about these guys? [SPEAKING GERMAN]

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He says the police told him that some members of Nordkreuz were collecting information on political enemies—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—that they had identified a camp deep inside the forest near Heiko’s hometown—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—and that prosecutors were now investigating whether those two Nordkreuz members had planned to gather and eliminate people on Day X.

katrin bennhold

Why do you think they had a sketch of your house?

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Heiko says he believes they were coming for him, too.

After this meeting with investigators—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Heiko says he’s paying more attention—

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—because he’s realized that this group was more dangerous than he thought.

heiko böhringer

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He tells me there are enough examples in German history of the far right eliminating political enemies. For Heiko, the idea of a shadow army feels pretty real. He says the whole thing has made him wonder if his country can protect its citizens, if it can protect itself, when the people who are supposed to be doing the protecting are the people he no longer trusts.

After four years, the federal prosecutors investigation into Nordkreuz has not led to an actual indictment and may never make it to court.

In fact, so far, there’s only one person in all branches of this entire nationwide network facing terrorism charges, the person who opened the door to these investigations in the first place, Franco A. And as far as anyone at the federal prosecutor’s office or in the military can remember, Franco A. is the first active duty soldier in Germany to stand trial for plotting terrorism since World War II.

[music]

“Day X” is made by Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Kaitlin Roberts, Larissa Anderson, Michael Benoist, and me, Katrin Bennhold. Additional reporting by Chris Schuetze, engineered by Dan Powell, original music by Hauschka and Dan Powell, research and fact checking by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Anita Badejo, Liz Baylen, Lisa Tobin, Lisa Chow, Claudine Ebeid, Rachelle Bonja, Stella Tan, Soraya Shockley, Lauren Jackson, Nora Keller, Desiree Ibekwe, Julia Simon, Tanjev Schultz, Jörg Echternkamp, Miro Dittrich, Michael Slackman, Jim Yardley, Kirk Kraeutler, Sam Dolnick, Matt Purdy, and Cliff Levy.

A German military official who was part of a network of far-right extremists planned to assassinate prominent politicians and activists. To understand the extremism still lurking in Germany’s shadows, The Times talked to two of his alleged targets.

Day X Poster

Released on June 3, 2021.
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0:00/37:17
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transcript

Released on June 3, 2021.

claudia roth

You mentioned Franco A., yes? Franco A.?

I was informed by the federal criminal police office they had found the diary of Franco A. — Franco A., a former Bundeswehr officer. And it was a list of names, including the foreign minister, some intellectuals, some human rights activists, and my name, Claudia Roth. And this was a so-called enemy list, to be killed, enemies to be killed.

[music]

Really, he’s a soldier in the Bundeswehr. And he posed as a Syrian. He posed as a Syrian to make refugees responsible. So this was the idea. They would kill people, enemies. But then they would blame refugees to be the perpetrators.

katrin bennhold

The case against Franco A. Is remarkable for many reasons. Not only that, as far as anyone I’ve talked to can remember, he’s the first active duty soldier to stand trial for plotting terrorism since World War II. Or that his arrest opened the door to a country-wide network of people planning for Day X. Or even that he had lived a double life as a Syrian refugee.

What’s most remarkable is that the German authorities had been utterly blind to him. It took a maintenance man stumbling upon a gun in an airport bathroom to uncover it all.

It was just chance.

Back when I first started reporting on this case, I called one of Franco A.‘s lawyers to ask if Franco would talk. The lawyer was doubtful, but said he’d pass along the message. I also called the prosecution. They wouldn’t talk on the record. But in their indictment, they’re making the case that Franco A. Has a far right mindset.

They quote from voice memos found on Franco’s phone, where he questions how Germany atones for the Holocaust, argues that immigration has ruined Germany’s ethnic purity, and says things like, I know you will murder me. I will murder you first. They say Franco A. was firmly decided to commit a violent act. And they point to handwritten notes with the names of prominent politicians and activists. And they say that one Friday in the summer of 2016, Franco A. traveled to Berlin, where one of those people worked. They say he drew a map of the location of the building and that he went inside the parking garage and took pictures of the license plates of several cars.

And in the days after, according to one witness, he was at a shooting range with an assault rifle.

Franco A. Denies all the terrorism charges against him. But his case has come to represent something investigators are increasingly worried about, that Day X is not just an imagined day, a future crisis, but a call for action, a pretext for terrorism, or worse, a coup. And that’s why prosecutors say Franco A. picked the targets that he did.

From The New York Times, I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is Day X.

[street noise]

katrin bennhold

I wonder if that’s where he got access to the parking garage.

clare toeniskoetter

And there’s no guard in this building that we can see.

katrin bennhold

Yeah. I wonder what security’s going to be like. Should we ring the bell?

clare toeniskoetter

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

In December 2019 —

katrin bennhold

Hello.

speaker

From The New York Times?

katrin bennhold

I went with producers Clare Toeniskoetter and Lynsea Garrison to that office building in Berlin.

anetta kahane

We’re talking in English or German?

katrin bennhold

— to meet one of Franco A.‘s alleged targets.

katrin bennhold

Let me maybe start just by asking you, if you could just sort of say who you are and what you do.

anetta kahane

My name is Anetta Kahane. I’m the chairperson of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation. And the Amadeu Antonio Foundation is trying to fight racism, anti-Semitism, and right wing extremism.

katrin bennhold

Anetta is one of the most prominent human rights activists in the country.

katrin bennhold

And in this sort of position, have you had particular moments of being threatened?

anetta kahane

Yes, of course. It’s part of our daily life. It’s part of my daily life. And it’s not so easy to deal with that. But in the end of the day, I’m used to it, somehow.

katrin bennhold

She’s also one of the most hated figures on the far right, up there with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

anetta kahane

Look at that door.

katrin bennhold

She pulls out a phone and shows us the emails she’s been getting.

katrin bennhold

Wow. This sort of endless, like, dozens and dozens of hate mail.

anetta kahane

Horrible things — I have a lot of this.

katrin bennhold

This is really striking. This arrived this morning on email.

anetta kahane

It’s like, “Congratulations. Congratulations, you are now first place on our killing list. We will cut you a swastika into your face with a very sharp X. And afterwards, we will cut your [SPEAKING GERMAN].

katrin bennhold

Your spine.

anetta kahane

— your spine. And we will leave you in —

katrin bennhold

To die in some

anetta kahane

— side street, yeah. We’ll kill every non-Aryan, every Jewish, Muslim, and —

katrin bennhold

Worthless.

anetta kahane

— worthless life in our wonderful, beautiful Germany.

katrin bennhold

And erase you from our history books.

anetta kahane

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

And then this. We will be a lot more efficient than our ancestors in 1938. I mean, this is — how does it end? What’s, like, the final line?

anetta kahane

Huh. “Sieg Heil.”

katrin bennhold

Mmhmm.

[music]

And is this every single day that you get something like this?

anetta kahane

Not every day, but sometimes, yes.

katrin bennhold

Is it safe to be Jewish in Germany today?

anetta kahane

It is not safe, no.

katrin bennhold

When was the time in Germany that you felt the most comfortable with being Jewish?

anetta kahane

I don’t remember. It was always difficult, always.

katrin bennhold

Tell us a little bit about your childhood. Where did you grow up?

anetta kahane

In Berlin, mainly. And —

katrin bennhold

Which part?

anetta kahane

In East Berlin, in Pankow.

katrin bennhold

Anetta grew up in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, in a Soviet-controlled East Germany that had claimed to have eliminated the Nazi problem.

anetta kahane

And my father was —

katrin bennhold

Her parents were Holocaust survivors. They were Jewish. And they were communists who fought in the resistance against fascism.

anetta kahane

The Communist Party —

katrin bennhold

And they taught their daughter that communism was the surest way to prevent something like the Nazis from ever happening again.

anetta kahane

And as a Jew in Germany —

katrin bennhold

They’d tell her that under communism everyone was equal. So things like racism and anti-Semitism, they simply couldn’t exist. But going to school in East Berlin, Anetta started to sense something else.

anetta kahane

I saw all these parents of my friends. And they were looking at me, like, a little bit, what is she? She’s — somehow, she’s different. And I just knew that I feel strange. I was a strange one. But — but of course, they told me all these terrible jokes about burning Jews and what fun it is to kill Jews and things like that. And blaming me, also, for as a Jewish pig and things like that. Yes. Yes, it was very present.

For a long time, I didn’t knew it was anti-Semitism. I just felt like I’m an idiot.

katrin bennhold

She’d go to her dad and tell him what she was feeling.

anetta kahane

I came home. And I said, I don’t feel good. I was feeling, like, something, like, very strange and very lonely.

katrin bennhold

But he didn’t really get it.

anetta kahane

One day he said, I don’t know why you always have these problems. I mean, what is the problem? This is all comrades outside. They are all members of the party. So they must be nice. So it was worth the impression that I’m not good enough for being a good communist. I was not trusting my impressions, you know? It was like a gaslight situation.

katrin bennhold

For years, Anetta convinced herself that what she was experiencing wasn’t real. She says she tried to be a good communist. When she was 19, the Stasi knocked on her door. And for several years she was an informant for one of the most repressive police intelligence services in the world.

anetta kahane

Of course, it was a terrible thing. And I mean, I’m not proud of it.

katrin bennhold

But by the time she’s in her 30s, the problems her parents had dismissed her whole life were now visible on the streets.

anetta kahane

In the middle of the ‘80s, this neo-Nazi movement started to be very, very strong.

katrin bennhold

A potent neo-Nazi movement with thousands of members was growing.

katrin bennhold

You could see them. But they looked like what we — in those early ‘90s, like, basically bald heads.

anetta kahane

Yeah. Yeah. Bald heads and skinheads. There’s all this stuff. And they were really very violent. And they beat up a lot of people.

katrin bennhold

And yet, the government denied the existence of far right extremists point blank. The official line was there are no neo-Nazis in communist East Germany.

anetta kahane

This was a very, very bad situation. And I thought, well, my God. This is a state that calls himself antifascists and does nothing about these Nazis. And I thought why? I used to be so naive. Now I see. This antifascism is not real.

The opposite of fascism is not antifascism, but a democratic vibrant culture, you know? You have to discuss all this things. You have a process of things and bringing this. And if you don’t do that, this is exactly what is happening. The next generation is going back to the same pattern.

katrin bennhold

And so —

archived recording

Thousands of East Germans came across the border today, perhaps —

katrin bennhold

When the Berlin Wall falls in 1989 —

archived recording

In the thousands, they are here in the tens of thousands.

katrin bennhold

— Anetta felt hopeful about a new democratic future.

archived recording

Occasionally they shout, [SPEAKING GERMAN], the wall must go.

anetta kahane

[LAUGHS] Every time they repeat that, I started to cry again. It was so touching.

katrin bennhold

East Germany had been frozen in time behind the Wall, a neo-homogeneous white country. And suddenly, thousands of Easterners were pouring into a multicultural West Germany.

archived recording

Put bulldozers right through the wall so that more people could cross to the West.

katrin bennhold

The day after the border opens, Anetta crosses into the West herself.

anetta kahane

And when I first crossed the bridge, there were these Turkish people with the fruits and everything and were giving away. And they were shouting, welcome and some nice things, you know? It was, like, they were just giving people some fruit. And the first thing I heard, I mean, was exactly by my side, there was a guy who was shouting, give me those! And he took the fruit. And he said, now you can go home, you bloody Turks. Now we are Germans [SPEAKING GERMAN]. Foreigners away. And so it was the first reaction, taking the present, a gift, and then immediately shouting out some racist stuff.

I mean, it was so — it was terrible.

katrin bennhold

And then, as the economy in the former communist East collapses, and millions lose their jobs —

[glass breaking]

katrin bennhold

— a wave of racist violence sweeps through Germany.

anetta kahane

This was a moment of fear.

[street noise]

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Immigrants are chased, beaten up, and sometimes killed.

anetta kahane

They’re hunting all these Black people.

katrin bennhold

Their homes are firebombed.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN].

[rioting]

anetta kahane

So many incidents, all the time, all the time, they never stopped.

archived recording

German police have arrested a teenager in connection with a weekend arson attack on Turkish immigrants in —

katrin bennhold

Sometimes, Eastern onlookers would watch, clap, and even join in.

archived recording

Police say angry looters ransacked dozens of stores.

anetta kahane

There were a lot of horrible things going on at that time. I cannot tell you. I mean, there were entire cities completely dominated by neo-Nazis.

[men chanting]

archived recording

[CHANTING IN GERMAN]

[cheering]

katrin bennhold

So as the violence increases, Anetta throws herself into organizing against it.

anetta kahane

^A And nobody really counted them as a right wing motivated killing, a murder.

katrin bennhold

But she says when she and other activists talked to politicians in the East to tell them about what they were seeing —

anetta kahane

Oh, don’t talk bad about my city. I mean, besides, it was a single case.

katrin bennhold

They would always say —

anetta kahane

[SPEAKING GERMAN], you know?

katrin bennhold

Single cases, lone wolves. And when she talks with leaders in the West —

anetta kahane

Well, we have a big problem with neo-Nazis.

katrin bennhold

She hears the same thing again.

anetta kahane

Well, no. These are [SPEAKING GERMAN], you know? Single cases. Don’t talk so bad about East Germany. This is not productive, you know? This is not good. Please. But it is a little bit like this gaslight feeling I had in my childhood, or when I was a teenager. Because I say, always, this is anti-Semitic. This is everywhere. And people say, yes, it’s a single case. It’s not the society. But I find them everywhere. This is the problem in Germany. This is very deep inside of the German heritage or family narratives. There are parents. There are teachers. There are officers. This very deep, deep, deep inside of the internal life of the German.

[gentle music]

katrin bennhold

And so when it comes to the story of Franco A., Anetta sees it as just another example of what’s always been there.

katrin bennhold

Do you remember the very first time that you heard of Franco? Did you get a phone call?

anetta kahane

No. As I remember, I saw it in the newspaper.

katrin bennhold

You read it in the newspaper?

anetta kahane

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

And she’s used to people not seeing the problem.

anetta kahane

And only then, people from the police department came. And they told me, well, you probably read it in the newspaper. There is a guy who wanted to kill you. But don’t be afraid. These neo-Nazis, you know, we got them, all three neo-Nazis. And my reaction was to break out loudly laughing. Because three neo-Nazis? This is ridiculous. There are a lot of neo-Nazis. And it was, like, kind of funny, you know?

katrin bennhold

The police tell Anetta Franco A. was arrested along with two suspected accomplices. Both were eventually released. And after seven months in prison, Franco A. is released, too.

anetta kahane

And then, when he was set free, they didn’t told me. [LAUGHS] No, they didn’t tell me and they didn’t tell me.

katrin bennhold

I asked police whether they had failed to inform Anetta. But they declined to comment.

anetta kahane

And what — I was kind of angry the other day when somebody called me. And he said, do you know that Franco is running around here in Berlin? I said, no. Really?

It could be a good idea to send you a picture of him. Because he is running around here, where I have my offices. So probably you run into him and you don’t know. Oh, yes. That’s a good idea. And this was the first time I saw it. I mean, this should be done by the police. You know? To tell me he is in Berlin, be aware, or something like that. But they didn’t tell me, nothing.

katrin bennhold

Not long after Franco A. is released from prison, a state court dismisses his terrorism charges. And Anetta is a key reason why. The court rules that Franco A. had nine months between staking out a parking garage and being arrested, plenty of time to kill her. But he didn’t. So they conclude that there wasn’t enough evidence to show that Franco A. had firmly decided to take action.

Prosecutors appeal. And for over a year, the case is in limbo. And while all of this is going on, Franco A. is living at home in his apartment in Western Germany, on leave from his job as an officer, but still being paid by the military.

And it’s around this time that he visits the workplace of another alleged target, Claudia Roth.

katrin bennhold

Maybe just introduce yourself and say who you are and what you do.

claudia roth

OK. My name is Claudia Roth. I’m Vice President, Deputy Speaker of the German Bundestag, German Parliament since 2013.

katrin bennhold

Claudia Roth is kind of like Germany’s Nancy Pelosi. And she says one day, in the fall of 2019 —

claudia roth

We have open day —

katrin bennhold

— during an open house event at Germany’s capital —

claudia roth

Thousands of people are coming and the political groups are represented. I’m represented in the parliament as a Vice President, but also as a Green. And Franco A. came.

katrin bennhold

Franco A. walks into the building and makes his way towards the Green Party booth

claudia roth

I was told afterwards that Franco A. was exactly at the table or the place where the Greens presented themselves, that he saw me. That he — perhaps he spoke, even, with me. And I did not know. I don’t know because I did not recognize him. The police did not inform me before or was not aware of this.

katrin bennhold

Eventually, the police are notified. And they escort him out of the building.

claudia roth

Of course, it’s a strange feeling. It’s a very strange feeling. And of course, I spoke to the police. And the police said as long as he’s not in prison, he’s allowed. So he can move freely.

But I tell you the truth. I’m not afraid.

katrin bennhold

As the highest ranking politician in the liberal Green Party, Claudia, like Anetta, is used to getting threats. So I’m a favorite enemy of the extreme right in Germany. Earlier on in her political career, extremists claimed she was Jewish.

claudia roth

Oh, for sure she’s Jewish. So —

katrin bennhold

Then, after 9/11 —

claudia roth

They switched from Jewish to Islamic.

katrin bennhold

— the far right came up with something else.

claudia roth

I was Islamist terrorist. Many of them call me Fatima. I’m Fatima Roth, yes, Fatima Roth.

katrin bennhold

And in 2015 —

claudia roth

When the refugees arrived in Germany —

katrin bennhold

— the threats got even worse.

claudia roth

Terrible ideas, how to rape, how to kill me.

katrin bennhold

Claudia is everything the far right despises. She’s a feminist, a liberal. She supports refugees. But what riles them the most about her is how she sees herself as a German.

Claudia’s mom was in the Nazi Youth. Her dad served as a soldier under Hitler.

claudia roth

And so I had terrible problems to get a normal relationship to myself. And being a German, what does it mean to be German?

This was one of the most difficult questions. And it was around ‘68 when a door was opened, towards your own history, your own German crimes.

[crowd chanting]

[street noise]

[whistle blowing]

katrin bennhold

During the 1960s, as a countercultural revolution swept across the United States, Germany had its own reckoning.

claudia roth

One question was asked and asked and asked. It was the question to the parents, why was Auschwitz possible? Why?

katrin bennhold

It was only then that the generation of Claudia’s parents began to confront the past.

claudia roth

My parents took us, me and my two sisters, to Dachau. Dachau is a former concentration camp, where many people were killed. I’m not sure whether we, the children, understood what probably nobody can understand. But I think it was my parents that wanted to understand what had happened and what it means to be German. What does it mean? And my father said, you are born 10 years after the end of the Second World War, after the worst crimes in ever.

But what happened in the Nazi time, the Nazi terror, the crimes are part of your biography. Not easy to understand what it means.

katrin bennhold

This German struggle for national identity actually became part of German identity. And for Claudia, there’s still the sense of humility. The sense that, as a country, Germany has been on the wrong side of history.

claudia roth

Can I love Germany? I would never say this. Can I be proud being a German? Never, I would never say I’m very proud. German flag? No, this was never, ever. I’m a German, yes. I do not hide. But proud? No. I’m a German with all responsibilities. I am meanwhile happy and proud that there are so many people who are fighting for a stronger democracy, who try to establish a multicultural democracy, [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

A society of the many.

claudia roth

A society of the many.

katrin bennhold

The idea of a multicultural democracy and how to protect it is enshrined in Germany’s post-war Constitution.

claudia roth

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

Article I in our Constitution, the most wonderful sentence ever — [SPEAKING GERMAN] The dignity of human being is untouchable.

katrin bennhold

It was written with the explicit aim to prevent something like the Nazi era from ever happening again.

claudia roth

Not the dignity of the German human being, or a white, or a Christian, but the dignity of any human being.

Yeah, perhaps this is why I’m like — why I am Claudia with all her fights against racism, against xenophobia, against sexism, against homophobia, against Islamophobia, against anti-Semitism, against all these things that try to discriminate and separate people.

katrin bennhold

Claudia was first elected for the Greens in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. And who she became and what fuels her politics, this is what defines Germany today.

[chanting]

It’s the Germany that atones for the Holocaust with memorials and history lessons in every public school. The Germany that elected Angela Merkel —

[people chanting, speaking]

— that admitted over a million refugees, and that has come to define liberal democracy in Europe and beyond.

[german singing]

But it’s also the Germany that has given rise to a powerful backlash.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

[crowd cheering]

katrin bennhold

In 2017, a far right party was elected into parliament for the first time since the Nazis.

archived recording

This is a party that didn’t even exist a few years ago.

[crowd chanting in german]

katrin bennhold

The AFD, Alternative for Deutschland. Its power base is in the former communist East. And it’s the polar opposite of Claudia’s party.

claudia roth

Of course, I’m concerned. And I’m afraid. And I see that this radicalization —

archived recording

The AFD’s popularity has surged amid Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open door migration policy.

claudia roth

They are the loudspeaker for the extremists.

katrin bennhold

And outside of Parliament —

archived recording

A deadly attack near a synagogue in Germany —

katrin bennhold

— the far right has turned increasingly violent.

archived recording

There’s two people killed in a shooting rampage near a synagogue in the Eastern German town. To say they are only isolated, they are only lonely wolves, it’s absolutely not true. It has happened again. Germany is reeling tonight following the deaths of 10 people in another far right terror attack.

katrin bennhold

Over the past few years, Germany has suffered a series of deadly far right terror attacks.

archived recording

Police in Germany have arrested a suspect in connection with the shooting of a CDU politician.

katrin bennhold

Including the assassination of a politician in 2019.

archived recording

Walter Lubcke, who was head of the city council in Kassel.

katrin bennhold

Walter Lubcke, a regional official in Angela Merkel’s party who, like Anetta and Claudia, was on numerous far right death lists.

archived recording

Lubcke had previously received death threats from right wing extremists after he voiced his support for Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees.

katrin bennhold

He was shot on his terrace at close range by a well-known neo-Nazi.

Nearly three months after the Lubcke murder, prosecutors win their appeal in Germany’s Supreme Court to try Franco A. on terrorism charges. The judges rule that just because Franco A. had not killed anyone by the time he was arrested, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to. That it wasn’t the timing, but the intention that really mattered.

And so now, Franco A. is standing trial, a single case. But for Claudia, this is about something bigger.

claudia roth

What I do not understand, he committed a lot of different crimes. He was very outspoken in his anti-Semitism. Nobody understood is that he’s anti-Semitic, and in the same time, in the Bundeswehr, he had evidently stolen explosives, whole boxes of ammunition from army. And no military superior, no intelligence service, no investigation officer noticed this? Difficult and hard to believe.

katrin bennhold

For her, and for many others, it’s about a pattern in Germany of the authorities turning a blind eye to the far right. Because Franco A. Is not the first case to be discovered by chance.

katrin bennhold

Do you think that the blindness of the police towards the possibility of neo-Nazis being behind this, does this tell us that the police had sympathies in that direction? Or is it just that they couldn’t imagine it?

claudia roth

This is the point that I want to understand. Yeah? I would not say that these policemen are all Nazis. But they all make the same mistake. So I want to understand why.

katrin bennhold

Day X is made by Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Kaitlin Roberts, Larissa Anderson, Michael Benoist, and me, Katrin Bennhold. Additional reporting by Chris Schuetze. Engineered by Dan Powell. Original music by Hauschka and Dan Powell. Research and fact checking by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Anita Badejo, Liz Baylen, Lisa Tobin, Lisa Chow, Claudine Ebeid, Rachelle Bonja, Stella Tan, Soraya Shockley, Lauren Jackson, Nora Keller, Des Ibekwe, Julia Simon, Tanjev Schultz, Jörg Echternkamp, Miro Dittrich, Michael Slackman, Jim Yardley, Kirk Kraeutler, Sam Dolnick, Matt Purdy and Cliff Levy.

Germany has a blind spot when it comes to the far right. In the early 2000s, a neo-Nazi terror group went on a killing spree, mostly targeting Turkish immigrants. How did they manage to escape justice for more than a decade?

Day X Poster

Released on June 10, 2021.
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0:00/38:40
-38:40

transcript

Released on June 10, 2021.

[music]

katrin bennhold

The case of Franco A. Was seen as a wake up call for Germany. But the thing is, it shouldn’t have been. Because Franco A. wasn’t the first case to show that Germany has a blind spot when it comes to the far right.

[background voices]

katrin bennhold

Years before him, there was another case, another wake up call.

speaker

I mean, it was huge. It was, like, watershed.

katrin bennhold

It was one of the biggest far right terrorism cases Germany has ever seen.

[street noise]

[interposing voices]

katrin bennhold

And so, in December 2019, I went to Frankfurt with producers Claire Toeniskoetter and Lynsea Garrison—

seda basay-yildiz

Hi, Lynsea.

katrin bennhold

—to meet a woman who was a part of that case. Her name is Seda Basay-Yildiz, and she’s a criminal lawyer.

seda basay-yildiz

And something changes with me with this case. Yeah?

katrin bennhold

When did you— before you were even involved as a lawyer, when did you first hear about the murders?

seda basay-yildiz

It was in November 2011.

[radio news playing]

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

seda basay-yildiz

I was on the road to a court or something like that.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

seda basay-yildiz

And I hear the radio.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

seda basay-yildiz

Terrorism group.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

seda basay-yildiz

And they killed 10 people from 2000 to 2007.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

seda basay-yildiz

And most of the victims, they are Turkish people.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

seda basay-yildiz

And nobody realizes that these people are killed from Nazis.

So I can’t believe that something like that [SPEAKING GERMAN].

katrin bennhold

That it is possible. That this kind of thing can happen in— in Germany.

seda basay-yildiz

In Germany, yes.

katrin bennhold

Seda told me that a couple of months after she hears about the case on the radio, she gets a phone call.

seda basay-yildiz

The wife of the first victim called me and wants to [SPEAKING GERMAN].

katrin bennhold

She wanted me to be her lawyer.

seda basay-yildiz

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

And when she’s asked to represent the family of one of the murder victims—

seda basay-yildiz

For me, this was really personal.

katrin bennhold

She thinks about her own family.

seda basay-yildiz

Because my parents are from Turkey. And in my past, I was confronted with racism, too.

katrin bennhold

She said when she was just a little girl, her parents had finally scrounged up enough money to buy a used car, an old one.

seda basay-yildiz

Really, really old car.

katrin bennhold

But when they tried to buy insurance—

seda basay-yildiz

They say, we don’t want to make a contract with Turkish people.

katrin bennhold

—they couldn’t get it.

seda basay-yildiz

So I think about what can I do?

katrin bennhold

Seda, unlike her parents, spoke fluent German. So on her own, she learned about a federal agency where she could file a complaint. She did. And days later, an insurance contract showed up in the mail.

seda basay-yildiz

And so I believed in our justice system, that everyone has the same rights in this country. And I think it was the decision for me to become a lawyer.

katrin bennhold

And so when Seda gets that call from the woman whose husband had been murdered, she knows she has to take the case.

seda basay-yildiz

And that was an honor for me. Because they have the right to get answers.

katrin bennhold

And over the next six years, Seda tries to get answers about how a far right terrorist network went undetected for over a decade.

katrin bennhold

Do you think that the blindness of the police towards the possibility of neo-Nazis being behind this, does this tell us that the police had sympathies in that direction? Or is it just that they couldn’t imagine it?

seda basay-yildiz

This is the point that I want to understand. Yeah? I would not say that these policemen are all Nazis. But they all make the same mistake.

So I want to understand why. Why?

katrin bennhold

From The New York Times, I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is Day X.

The story begins in the year 2000 with a flower seller named Enver Simsek. Enver’s 38-years-old. He moved to Germany with his wife back in 1985 from Turkey, like more than two million other Turkish immigrants who came here in the decades after the war.

He and his wife had two kids, a son and a daughter, both born in Germany. He started out working in a factory, long hours. But in his free time, he sold flowers. And eventually, he quit his job in the factory to work in flowers full-time.

One September morning, Enver leaves his hometown near Frankfurt and drives a couple of hours east to Nuremberg to stand in for another flower seller who was out of town. Just before 9 AM, he parks his van along the side of a suburban road and sets up shop. And around midday, he’s shot multiple times in his head and in his chest. He dies two days later.

Police begin investigating. And very quickly, they come up with a theory that Enver, who would drive to the Netherlands every week to get flowers, was transporting drugs. And even though they find no traces of drugs in his van, they cling on to the theory that Enver was involved in some kind of drug ring. The case goes nowhere.

And then, nine months later, another Turkish immigrant is killed. Abdurrahim Ozudogru’s body is discovered at his tailor shop, not far from where Enver was killed. Police are quick to identify the murder weapon as the same one that killed Enver, a rare Ceska 83 handgun.

Two weeks after that, there’s another murder. Suleyman Taskopru, a produce seller, is killed in his father’s shop in Hamburg. Same gun. Another two months later, a Turkish grocer named Habil Kilic is killed in Munich. Same gun.

The families of the victims tell police that maybe this is a series of hate crimes. Maybe investigators should look to the far right. But police continue to suspect it has to do with drugs, immigrants killing other immigrants, like some kind of Turkish mafia. And still, the case goes nowhere.

Then in 2004, there’s another murder. Mehmet Turgut is killed at a kebab shop in the northern city of Rostock. A year after that, Ismail Yasar is murdered in Nuremberg. Then Theodoros Boulgarides in Munich, Mehmet Kubasik in Dortmund, Halit Yozgat, an owner of an internet cafe in Kassel.

All the victims have an immigrant background. All are shot in the head, all with a Ceska 83.

And even though witnesses at multiple murder scenes report seeing white men who look like Nazis, the police stick to the theory of a Turkish mafia. And the murders come to be known as the Kebab Murders. For years, they go unsolved.

Until one day in 2011, when two masked men charged into a bank in an eastern German town. Both have guns. And they steal over 70,000 euros. Then they run outside, get on bicycles, and flee the scene.

As they make their getaway, they pass an old man on the street who sees them shove their bikes into a camper van and then peel off.

When the police pass that way looking for the robbers, the old man tells them what he saw. Not long after, the police find the camper van.

And as they walk towards it, the door swings open. And two men opened fire with a submachine gun. But the gun jams. So they shut themselves back inside the camper van.

The police hear two more shots.

Moments later, the camper van goes up in flames, black smoke billowing from it.

Once the police open the door, they find several weapons. And the burned bodies of the two men with gunshot wounds in their heads.

And as police are still securing the scene, there’s an explosion at an apartment more than 100 miles away.

The police get to that scene. And when the fire dies down, they start sifting through the rubble. Eventually, they find a gun, a Ceska 83.

They also find dozens of copies of a DVD. They’re in envelopes addressed to media and other organizations with no return address. And when they press play—

[dvd playing]

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

—a bizarre cartoon plays out.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

It’s The Pink Panther. He carries a stack of posters to an easel in a spotlight. And he starts a kind of presentation.

On poster after poster, there’s newspaper clippings of the nine immigrant murders that have never been solved with photos of the victims. There’s also the photo of a tenth victim, a police officer whose death had never been linked to the other murders.

And the video reveals who’s responsible for it all.

It’s a group of neo-Nazis who took their name from Hitler’s Nazi party. They call themselves the National Socialist Underground, the N.S.U.

[pink panther theme music]

katrin bennhold

And they say their motto is actions, not words.

A few days after the botched bank robbery, a woman turns herself in.

Her name is Beate Zschäpe. Investigators had been looking for her for a long time. They knew her as part of a trio, along with two men, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt. All three grew up in the former communist East. They were teenagers when Germany reunified, and became part of a growing neo-Nazi scene.

[crowd shouting]

archived recording

Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!

katrin bennhold

When Uwe Mundlos was 21, he served in the German military. And during his time there, someone found an image of Hitler on a card in his pocket. The military let it go. And during the course of the year, he was actually promoted several times.

It’s the kind of thing I’ve heard again and again in my reporting on Franco A. and far right infiltration, where neo-Nazis use the military specifically to get training, which is exactly what Uwe Mundlos did.

When he returned home to rejoin Beate and Uwe Bohnhardt, they built fake bombs in a garage. They mailed them out and placed them in public spaces to terrorize people. Then they started collecting real explosives.

The police eventually raided their garage. But by the time they found the explosives, the trio had gone underground.

And it wasn’t until 2011, when that bank robbery went bad, that it all started to click in place.

And investigators realize that the two Uwes were the bicycle bank robbers. That Beate had set fire to their hideout. And that all of them were behind one of the biggest series of terrorist attacks Germany had ever seen. Which introduced an entirely new puzzle— how did they miss it?

[several news clips play and overlap]

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

And the worst acts of neo-Nazi terrorism since the end of World War II—

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

When the N.S.U. story breaks—

archived recording

How the neo-Nazi group got away with the killings—

katrin bennhold

The whole country was asking—

archived recording

How did the neo-Nazis murder and bomb across Germany for a decade—

katrin bennhold

How could this have happened?

archived recording (angela merkel)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Chancellor Angela Merkel makes a promise to the families of the victims.

archived recording (angela merkel)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

That Germany would do right by them and that their questions would be answered.

archived recording

The parliamentary panel responsible for monitoring their work met in special closed door session.

katrin bennhold

And Parliament commissions an investigation to figure out what went wrong. But before the findings are even released—

archived recording

It’s obvious the domestic intelligence service did not do its job properly.

katrin bennhold

—stories start coming out about Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.

archived recording

The regional intelligence agency always insisted it was acting as an early warning system for democracy. Now it’s becoming pretty obvious something went wrong. It may have been—

katrin bennhold

It’s called The Office for The Protection of the Constitution and was created after World War II to protect the country against anti-democratic threats.

archived recording

The Office for The Protection of the Constitution destroyed relevant documents just one week after the scandal broke.

Authorities apparently shredded documents relevant to the case.

The country’s intelligence agency may have been infiltrated by double agents loyal to the far right. And—

katrin bennhold

And in light of these stories about how the Office had failed—

archived recording

It’s partly because of their own incompetence and partly because they were blind in one eye, believing only—

katrin bennhold

Some people call for the agency to be totally dismantled.

stephan kramer

My only conclusion was the whole institution needs to be teared down and basically rebuilt.

katrin bennhold

One of those people is a man named Stephan Kramer. At the time all this was happening, he was the public face of Germany’s Central Council of Jews. And in a sign of how big a crisis this was, he was later appointed to run the regional intelligence agency in the same state where the N.S.U. was from.

stephan kramer

Kick some neo-Nazi asses.

katrin bennhold

So I called him to hear what the scandal looked like from the inside.

katrin bennhold

What do we know about what they actually knew inside the intelligence service about this N.S.U. group?

stephan kramer

Look, the National Socialist Underground was very much known by the domestic intelligence agency. And even worse, some of the members of the scene were information sources of the domestic intelligence—

katrin bennhold

Stephan says that one of the biggest problems was how much intelligence agencies came to rely on informants from inside the far right scene.

stephan kramer

There’s no doubt about this.

katrin bennhold

But he says it was more than that.

stephan kramer

But also, information that were passed on to the police were not followed up on.

katrin bennhold

Like what, for example?

stephan kramer

For example, we knew about the garages that were used by the trio to cover up stuff. And we delivered the information about the garages and exact locations to the police.

katrin bennhold

He says that when the agency did have reliable information to pass along—

stephan kramer

They did not go into the garages and they did not follow up on that leads.

katrin bennhold

—the police just sat on it. Or they were directed by their superiors to ignore it.

stephan kramer

And rather investigate in other directions that were useless.

katrin bennhold

As for the agency’s own intelligence failures, specifically how it handled its far right informants, there are still more questions than answers. One week after the terror cell was uncovered—

stephan kramer

Some staff member took some paperwork and just destroyed it.

katrin bennhold

An intelligence official shredded files on seven N.S.U. informants. And there are other files that include information about an agent who handled informants. And it was at one of the N.S.U. murder scenes, in an internet cafe, while the owner was shot.

stephan kramer

And the simple question was, hm, how come that somebody like him sits in the internet cafe, but he didn’t take any notice of the killing inside the cafe, and that when he left the cafe, he did not see the body?

katrin bennhold

When investigators looked into this particular agent, they found evidence he had far right views, papers where he quoted Mein Kampf. And according to one of his neighbors, people called him Little Adolf.

stephan kramer

That is one of the questions to solve. Why was he there? What was he really doing there? And was there any connection between the state domestic intelligence and those events taking place against the owner of the internet cafe?

katrin bennhold

The state government sealed away files about that agent until 2044. And even as the head of a state intelligence office, Stephan says he can’t get answers. For its part, the federal intelligence agency has admitted to making many mistakes. And the head of the agency had to resign over the scandal. But it rejected the idea that anyone inside the agency had been helping the N.S.U.

The parliamentary investigation was less certain. It didn’t find sufficient evidence to prove that the authorities were helping the terrorists. But it said they could and should have known enough to stop the murders.

Stephan goes further than that.

stephan kramer

Look, it’s like the big elephant in the room. But I’m naming it. There’s a lot of complicity, even among people in agencies and in public security institutions.

katrin bennhold

So people with far right leanings who are acting to protect—

stephan kramer

Yes.

katrin bennhold

—neo-Nazis?

stephan kramer

Yes. This is a cancer that goes to the roots.

katrin bennhold

In May 2013—

archived recording

What is described as one of the most important criminal trials in post-war German history—

600 witnesses could be called to Germany’s largest neo-Nazi trial—

[interposing voices]

katrin bennhold

—the N.S.U. trial starts.

[interposing voices]

katrin bennhold

And for all the failures of Germany’s security agencies, they aren’t the ones on the stand.

archived recording

All eyes on the woman accused of being the one survivor of a neo-Nazi cell which killed 10 people.

katrin bennhold

It’s Beate Zschape, the only surviving member of the N.S.U. trio.

archived recording

For Germans, this is the woman who represents the latest challenge in that country’s long battle with right wing extremism. The trial of a woman known as the Nazi bride—

Beate Zschäpe faces life in prison if convicted. But she denies—

katrin bennhold

She’s there, along with four accomplices.

seda basay-yildiz

I never was in a big trial like that.

katrin bennhold

Seda Basay-Yildiz is one of about 80 lawyers representing the families of the victims. And she’s aiming for tough sentences.

seda basay-yildiz

I think that this organization was not just these five people.

katrin bennhold

She’s hoping that through the trial she can figure out how big the N.S.U. network really is.

seda basay-yildiz

There have to be more. And about these people, we know nothing.

katrin bennhold

And why the intelligence services failed to stop them.

seda basay-yildiz

They knew that they were very dangerous. They want to kill people. And it was not possible to catch them. So why?

[interposing voices]

katrin bennhold

But as hundreds of witnesses file through the courtroom—

seda basay-yildiz

It was not possible to get the files from the informants.

katrin bennhold

—it becomes clear—

seda basay-yildiz

And so it was not possible to ask them the right questions.

katrin bennhold

—that many of Seda’s questions will not get answered in court.

archived recording

The trial has barely touched on the authority’s failings, nor has it examined the role of German domestic intelligence which had contacts—

katrin bennhold

And year after year, the trial drags on.

seda basay-yildiz

I was never in a case who takes such a long time.

katrin bennhold

Until eventually—

archived recording

Germany has just registered its one millionth refugee.

[crowd shouting]

archived recording

And these people—

katrin bennhold

—it fades from the headlines.

archived recording

Resentment of migration is growing in Germany.

The AfD, the next far right party, on the rise here in Germany.

A wave of sexual assault—

katrin bennhold

And other stories.

archived recording

The case of the soldier Franco A., who allegedly planned to—

katrin bennhold

—take its place.

archived recording

Authorities say the suspect was conspiring to assassinate top politicians and then put the blame on refugees.

seda basay-yildiz

It was five years, 448 days.

katrin bennhold

And by July 2018, after most of the country has moved on, the judges finally reach a verdict.

katrin bennhold

Were you in the room when it was pronounced?

seda basay-yildiz

Yes.

katrin bennhold

Beate Zschäpe is convicted of 10 counts of murder, arson, the formation of a terrorist organization, and membership of a terrorist organization. She’s sentenced to life in prison.

seda basay-yildiz

In four hours—

katrin bennhold

One of the accomplices is sentenced to 10 years in prison. The others get three years or less. And all four are released on bail pending appeal. When the sentences are announced—

seda basay-yildiz

The Nazis were clapping and loud.

katrin bennhold

Seda says there’s actually applause in the courtroom from N.S.U. sympathizers.

seda basay-yildiz

Cheering. Yes Yeah. It was a good day for them. And so our clients were really shocked. They punished them too lenient.

katrin bennhold

Like Seda, federal prosecutors had hoped for far tougher sentences.

seda basay-yildiz

And so it was a not good day for the German justice. Angela Merkel, she gives a promise to my clients. She say that I promise you that I will do everything to solve the N.S.U.

And my clients thought that when Angela Merkel say something like that, we can trust her.

So now we know she didn’t keep her promise.

There’s no justice at the end of this case for our clients.

katrin bennhold

Despite the promises of the government, multiple investigations, and her own attempts to unseal the N.S.U. files, Seda never gets the answers she wanted.

seda basay-yildiz

So my clients ask me why. Why is this such a problem? Yeah? So we have so many questions. Who knew what at what point? And they didn’t give us the answers.

katrin bennhold

Why, why do you think?

seda basay-yildiz

Because they are involved.

This is the only possible answer.

katrin bennhold

By the end of the trial, Seda’s left in the same place as Stephan Kramer. She says she’s come to believe that far right extremism has infiltrated the very institutions that are supposed to protect against it.

And that belief only intensifies three weeks after the trial.

seda basay-yildiz

I was, at this time, in Tunisia.

katrin bennhold

When she’s traveling for another case.

seda basay-yildiz

And I was in the late, late night in the hotel. And I checked my emails and faxes and saw that one fax was different.

katrin bennhold

What did the fax say? Do you remember the words exactly?

seda basay-yildiz

Yes. “You dirty Turkish pig. [SPEAKING GERMAN].”

katrin bennhold

“You won’t finish off Germany.”

seda basay-yildiz

“You won’t finish off Germany. We will slaughter your daughter. And we know your private address.

And at the end, they say N.S.U. 2.0.

I’m not a hysteric person. But I was in Tunisia and thousands of kilometers far away for my child.

And so I think about it. How serious is this now? Because these people, he has informations about me.

So for me was the question, how they get this informations for me, how it is possible that they have my address and the name of my daughter? It’s not publicly available. And so I called the police.

katrin bennhold

Seda reports the threat, flies home. And an investigation gets underway.

A few months later—

seda basay-yildiz

So I was on the road again. And I heard on the radio some police officers in Frankfurt are suspended.

katrin bennhold

—something on the news catches her attention.

seda basay-yildiz

There are some details. And I think, um, it can be my case. So I contact the police officer and say, is something you want to tell me? Because I heard on the radio there are investigations against police officers. Is this my case?

So he said everything is OK. We investigate.

Two days later, journalist write me an email about the suspended police officers in Frankfurt. He wants to talk with me.

And so I called the police officer again. And say, he is a journalist. He wants to talk with me about the suspended officers. Is something you want to tell me? I ask you again.

katrin bennhold

And finally—

seda basay-yildiz

And he say OK.

katrin bennhold

The police give her an answer.

seda basay-yildiz

He came to my office and say one hour before this fax sent to me, my address and the name of my daughter, the name of my whole family, my parents, and my husband, are accessed in the police computer in Frankfurt.

Since N.S.U., I knew that there are some problems in our institutions in Germany. But for me, it was new that police officers maybe had something to do with threatening my two-year-old daughter.

katrin bennhold

Seda learns that the officer who had been locked onto the computer when her private information was accessed was discovered to be part of a far right Whatsapp group. The group shared neo-Nazi memes, mocking drowned refugees, and showing Hitler on a rainbow with the caption, “Goodnight, you Jews.” That officer and a handful of others in that group were suspended. And the whole police station was searched.

seda basay-yildiz

So they suspended these police officers. But they did not prove that they are responsible for the fax. And the investigations— [SPEAKING GERMAN]?

katrin bennhold

Continue.

seda basay-yildiz

Continue. Yes.

katrin bennhold

In the following months—

seda basay-yildiz

They would investigate against 48 police officers.

katrin bennhold

The number of suspended officers grows to 38 in just one precinct.

seda basay-yildiz

I think if you have 38 persons, you have a structural problem.

katrin bennhold

And it’s not until May 3, 2021, nearly three years after Seda got that fax, that police arrest a man they believe was behind it, as well as 114 other messages, all signed N.S.U. 2.0. Police say he’s never worked for them, that he was probably acting alone, a single case. But how exactly he got access to information on police computers remains unclear.

What is clear is that hundreds of officers across the country have come under investigation on suspicion of far right extremism.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

Have suspended a number of officers suspected of sharing extremist content in online chat groups.

Police officers in the German state of—

katrin bennhold

In one state, 31 officers were suspended for sharing images of a refugee in a gas chamber and the shooting of a Black man.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

In another, 25 officers were discovered to be in a racist chat group.

archived recording

Nazi symbols, such as swastikas.

katrin bennhold

Six cadets were kicked out from police academy after playing down the Holocaust and posting swastikas online.

archived recording

I have long thought that these were only single incidents.

[SPEAKING GERMAN] But these are not single cases.

katrin bennhold

Some officers were even found to be hoarding ammunition and Nazi memorabilia, just like Franco A. and the network he was a part of. And it’s this kind of thing that investigators are worried about. More than threat letters celebrating the N.S.U. name, they’re worried about people actually plotting terrorism. People who, like the N.S.U., are focused on actions, not words.

seda basay-yildiz

We did not learn from this case. Nothing changes. Everything is the same.

So now we have Franco A.

katrin bennhold

And so now, Seda sees another case the institutions missed and another trial. But this time, the defendant is an officer in the German military who’s being accused of plotting an attack meant to take down the Federal Republic of Germany.

[background conversations]

And on the same day the news breaks that Franco A. would actually be tried for terrorism, I get a call. It’s Franco A.

archived recording

Katrin, tell me what’s going on.

katrin bennhold

We’re going to go see Franco, Franco A.

[shuffling]

Ah, look.

Oh.

[clanking]

katrin bennhold

Day X is made by Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Kaitlin Roberts, Larissa Anderson, Michael Benoist, and me, Katrin Bennhold. Additional reporting by Chris Schuetze. Engineered by Dan Powell. Original music by Hauschka and Dan Powell. Research and fact checking by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Liz Baylen, Lisa Tobin, Marc Georges, Claudine Ebeid, Rachelle Bonja, Soraya Shockley, Lauren Jackson, Nora Keller, Des Ibekwe, Julia Simon, Tanjev Schultz, Jörg Echternkamp, Miro Dittrich, Michael Slackman, Jim Yardley, Kirk Kraeutler, Sam Dolnick, Matt Purdy and Cliff Levy.

A German military officer was the first active duty soldier to be tried for terrorism in Germany since World War II. Over the course of a year, The Times interviewed him several times about the plot to assassinate prominent politicians and activists.

Day X Poster

Released on June 16, 2021.
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transcript

Released on June 16, 2021.

kaitlin roberts

Tell me where we are?

katrin bennhold

So we’re in the center of Frankfurt, just across the street from the court house where Franco A. is going to be tried today.

archived recording

Franco A. He’s accused of stockpiling weapons and planning significant acts of violence. Attacks against prominent politicians while posing as a Syrian refugee. The case of Franco A. is one that has gripped and perplexed the nation for the best part of four years, and he went on trial today on suspicion of planning to carry out several terror attacks. There he is.

[german speech]

archived recording

If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.

katrin bennhold

We’re trying to get into the courtroom. We might be asked to turn off in a second.

[interposing voices]

katrin bennhold

See you on the other side.

- The trial of Franco A. started in May, 2021. He’s the only person from a nationwide far-right network standing trial for plotting terrorism. Only a limited number of reporters are allowed in, and no one can record the proceedings. But long before Franco A ever walked into the courtroom, he talked to me.

From The New York Times, I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is Day X. Over the course of a year, I interviewed Franco several times along with producers Lynsea Garrison, Claire Toeniskoetter and Kaitlin Roberts. We agreed to meet at his apartment in Offenbach, a city just outside of Frankfurt, where he was awaiting trial. And each time, we’d set up on either side of his dining room table. Franco claimed he wanted to give us what he called the full picture. And yet, in our interviews, he was often evasive and dodged questions about his case. As we’ve reported out the story, we’ve wrestled with whether to air our interviews with Franco at all.

But Franco is the first active duty soldier in Germany to stand trial for plotting terrorism since World War II, at least as far as anyone I’ve talked to remembers. And given the danger of far-right infiltration, not just in Germany, but around the world, we wanted to show what the threat of the far-right can look like today.

Franco’s 32 years old. He wears a ponytail and a vest. He’s well-spoken, and is fluent in English and French. He’s got a gigantic bookshelf in his living room, with the Bible, the Quran, and a copy of the German constitution. He kind of looks like an art student, and he claims he doesn’t have any far-right views. But the evidence I’ve obtained over the past year paints a very different picture.

In voice memos that police found on his phone, Franco praises Hitler, he argues that immigration has ruined Germany’s ethnic purity, and he advocates for destroying the state. He stole ammunition and explosives from the military, and he stashed them in his basement. And, of course, there’s that loaded gun he hid in the bathroom at the Vienna Airport, which was one of the first things that I asked him about. Something happened?

franco a.

Yes, something happened, exactly. What do you know what happened?

katrin bennhold

You’ve said that you found a gun.

franco a.

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

What happened?

franco a.

Yes.

katrin bennhold

Or is that not true?

franco a.

Do you think it’s credible? Do you think it’s true?

katrin bennhold

Why don’t you tell the story first, and then let’s talk about whether it’s credible.

franco a.

Still it’s —

katrin bennhold

This is your version.

franco a.

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

Yeah.

franco a.

Yeah. So we go there. We have been drink. Well, no, no, no. I’m mixing up things now. We met together at these nice cafes down in Vienna.

katrin bennhold

Franco claimed he found the gun one night when he was out drinking with friends in Vienna.

franco a.

— to relieve myself.

katrin bennhold

He said he peeled off from the group to pee in some bushes on the side of the street.

franco a.

— weapon lying on the floor.

katrin bennhold

And there it was. On the ground.

franco a.

I took it, and it was a pistol. I took it.

katrin bennhold

So he said he put it in his coat pocket, and then he said he forgot about it. He told me he only remembered it in the security line at the airport the next day, and then hid it in a panic. He said he only went back to retrieve it so he could turn it in to the police. And by his own admission —

franco a.

The thing is, it doesn’t seem to be credible at all.

katrin bennhold

— it’s not a credible story.

franco a.

I’m aware of that.

katrin bennhold

Prosecutors believe he’d bought the gun several months earlier in Paris. It’s a vintage French handgun. It was the pistol of choice of German officers during the Nazi occupation of France. It was unregistered and couldn’t be traced. They also say he was in illegal possession of several other weapons, including a G3 combat rifle, which still hasn’t been found. Where are the guns?

franco a.

I don’t know where whatever guns are.

katrin bennhold

And when I asked Franco about these guns —

franco a.

I can’t — listen, I cannot answer your question now.

katrin bennhold

— he was cagey.

franco a.

But if ever there is something like guns, then it’s in the context of being ready for protecting first your relatives, and then all the others who are in need.

katrin bennhold

He claimed that if he ever did have weapons, it was only to be able to protect his family in a crisis situation. Like, did you hide them somewhere?

franco a.

I have no weapons. I have no ammunition. I have nothing. OK.

katrin bennhold

Yeah.

franco a.

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

He has since admitted in court that he in fact did have these guns. He said he got rid of them, but he refused to tell the judges where the guns are now. Prosecutors believe that Franco wanted to use them to kill. And they have evidence that they say points to several possible targets.

franco a.

There was this thing with Claudia Roth, where they started accusing me of having planned a terror plot against politicians.

katrin bennhold

They have handwritten notes about Claudia Roth, a member of the Green Party, and one of the vice presidents of the German parliament.

franco a.

It was like a pocket calendar where I wrote about — where I really mentioned the name Claudia. I couldn’t even remember it.

katrin bennhold

What did you write about her? When I asked Franco about these notes —

franco a.

Well, it was something like — I had learned about her —

katrin bennhold

He repeated some disinformation about her that’s popular in far-right circles.

franco a.

— she had Identified with a saying that goes, Germany never again. Or Germany die, you dirty piece off of excrements. And for a politician who was serving German interests, I couldn’t understand that. And at that point, when I read that, I got angry about this, and I wrote down her name, and —

katrin bennhold

Claudia has said, never again, as in, never again Auschwitz. But she didn’t say, Germany die.

franco a.

So and then they took this some kind of like — an intention of doing whatever harmful action against her, which is not the case at all.

katrin bennhold

I recently learned that in this pocket calendar where Franco wrote down Claudia’s name, he also wrote, “People like you suck our people dry. You have to pay.” And, “Locate where she is.” I also asked Franco about the Jewish activist Anetta Kahane, and the fact that in the summer of 2016, Franco visited the parking garage of her office. One reason why Anetta Kahane comes up a lot is that you were actually in her parking garage, taking pictures.

franco a.

The thing is that about this point, because it’s a very sensitive point, actually I would love to talk about this freely. But because there is nothing, there’s absolutely just nothing.

katrin bennhold

But could you say why you went? Just why?

franco a.

If ever I went. I never said that I went.

katrin bennhold

But I think people know that you were there, because you took pictures and your phone was taken, and so —

franco a.

Yeah, there are pictures on my phone, but then this doesn’t prove that I was there in some way. That’s the situation. Yeah. So —

katrin bennhold

So you’re disputing that you were there?

franco a.

I just don’t talk about it. Yeah.

If I talk about this, I can just talk about it in hypothetical terms, yeah? Then this person would have gone there, and this day probably the person wouldn’t have been there. Otherwise, he would have talked to her. Maybe there were some workers who were there.

katrin bennhold

Franco said that hypothetically he just wanted to talk to Anetta. And then he launched into another kind of defense.

franco a.

Even if this was true, which is not, definitely not, then it would be if ever. At worst it would, be the preparation of an assassination. Where is the state endangering? This person’s not even a politician. How can this be terrorism? This must then be just a murder or a prepared murder.

katrin bennhold

He claimed that planning to kill or even killing Anetta shouldn’t constitute an act of terrorism.

franco a.

You can prepare as many and as much and as long murders as you want. They cannot give you a trial for this.

katrin bennhold

But the law is very clear on this point. Killing or planning to kill Anetta would constitute an act of terrorism if it’s inspired by a larger political aim. And prosecutors say Franco had that aim. What did you want to talk to her about? What did you want to ask her?

franco a.

We cannot talk about this. I can only talk in conjunctive if ever.

katrin bennhold

What might you have asked her if you had gone there?

franco a.

For instance, what does she mean when she says that this is bankruptcy of the eastern regions of Germany, that there are not enough Black minorities?

katrin bennhold

Franco referred to an interview in 2015 where Anetta agreed with the idea that eastern states should take in more of the refugees that were coming into Germany at the time. She said eastern regions were struggling because the population was shrinking, and they would benefit from immigration.

franco a.

What’s wrong with a country or with a part of a country where there are white people living?

katrin bennhold

The idea of a diversifying Germany came up often in our interviews.

franco a.

I welcome in my country anybody who has a different culture.

katrin bennhold

And while Franco claimed he didn’t believe in racial hierarchy, he also said things like —

franco a.

We have migration for 1,000 years, everyone will look the same and everything will be the same.

katrin bennhold

— mixing races and cultures will eventually erase them.

franco a.

This is not diversity. This is a loss in diversity. It’s obvious.

katrin bennhold

It’s in these moments that Franco revealed himself as part of a larger phenomenon among the far-right. They call themselves the new right. Instead of skinheads and swastika tattoos, they often look more like Franco, with his ponytail and vest. Instead of screaming out racial slurs at rallies, they speak with an intellectual veneer, calling themselves ethno pluralists. They use terms like the great replacement and remigration, and they talk about culture more often than race. It’s all part of what intelligence officials say is a deliberate rebranding, an attempt to make racism acceptable to the mainstream. But when you break it down, it’s essentially the same ideology that was promoted by the Nazis.

Franco’s ideology is a central part of the case against him and that’s where the voice memos that the police found on his phone come in. They’re kind of like an audio diary, recorded when Frank thought no one would ever hear them. I actually obtained the transcripts of them. They’re mostly from 2015 and 2016, when over a million refugees were coming into Germany. I asked him about them. There is one on March 7, 2015. You were talking about how Americans were pushing race mixing, they’re controlled by Jews. And finally, Hitler is above all things, above everything, you say. Hitler was a creator of honest work. Everything that makes Hitler bad is a lie. How do you explain this?

franco a.

So you must know that it was in a joking mode.

katrin bennhold

In these memos, Franco describes a global Jewish conspiracy to weaken white European nations. This is you saying America controlled by the Jews wants to bring everything under a world order.

franco a.

No, it’s not true.

katrin bennhold

Well, you do say that here.

franco a.

OK, we come to that, we come to that.

katrin bennhold

And that world leaders like Chancellor Angela Merkel are in on the plot. And you call this a war.

franco a.

Well, a war between what we saw. Between this globalizing. Well, no, we go too far.

katrin bennhold

And, as in any other war, he suggests violence is justified. You do talk about violence is an option. It has to be an option.

franco a.

Yeah, because, of course.

katrin bennhold

Because where these criminals are today, they are only there because they’ve murdered time and time again. So let’s not hesitate. Not to murder, but to kill. In other words, let’s not hesitate to kill. So you are saying we are in a situation, a war, a confrontation. In one of the memos, he calls out to the French, the British, the Americans, the Italians, the Swedes, the Poles, the Russians to stand against the enemy. You say that we have to do this. We have the God given right and the constitutional right to do this. You end with, all together now, the time has come.” He says, “All together now, the time has come.”

franco a.

Don’t talk about my views, please. The thoughts that I once had, that I might have in the future, that I have now, are not even necessarily point of views. It’s just all work in progress, and everything evolves.

katrin bennhold

In the end, Franco explained these voice memos by saying they were supposed to be private, and he was just working through ideas. They’re not views, he claimed. Just thoughts.

It’s for the judges hearing Franco’s case to decide whether these thoughts were going to lead to something violent. But I’m left wondering, where did these thoughts begin, and how did someone with this mindset rise through the ranks in the military in Germany of all places?

Why didn’t anyone stop him?

[soft piano music]

kaitlin roberts

So this is where you grew up.

katrin bennhold

Has the driver been to Offenbach before? Does he know the city?

[speaking german]

katrin bennhold

Small city, a lot of foreigners, he says.

[speaking german]

katrin bennhold

In all of Germany there are a lot of foreigners, he says, but particularly here.

katrin bennhold

In the course of reporting this story, I spent a lot of time in Franco’s hometown, Offenbach. It’s an old working-class city just outside of Frankfurt.

speaker

Where you can see it’s quite diverse. We are a bit of everything.

katrin bennhold

And it’s one of the most diverse cities in Germany.

speaker

You can see the whole life in our city.

katrin bennhold

Immigrants and their children have long been the majority here.

[interposing voices]

katrin bennhold

When Franco grew up here in the ‘90s he went to school with a lot of kids who had an immigrant background. Franco’s own father came from Italy. Years later, Franco would describe the program that brought his dad to Germany as a deliberate plot to mix races. He said he himself was a product of this perverse racial hatred. But people he went to school with didn’t see any of that coming. I called several of his old classmates and teachers.

speaker

We would never have the idea of him being right wing, at all.

katrin bennhold

And most of them were shocked when Franco appeared in the news back in 2017.

peter

I was a teacher in the Schiller School since 1988.

katrin bennhold

One of his teachers remembers him particularly well. His name is Peter. He taught Franco for three years in middle school.

[speaking german]

Peter was part of a generation of teachers would come of age after the 1968 student movement. When young people asked their parents, how was Auschwitz possible?

He would often bring Auschwitz survivors into his class to tell their stories. It’s one of the ways Germany has tried to prevent Nazi ideology from ever taking hold again. By teaching that history with brutal honesty and in forensic detail.

Peter said Franco was a good student, and what stood out to him was Franco’s willingness to question everything. So how did someone from such a diverse city and tolerant city like Offenbach, and a school like the Schiller School, how did someone like that become radicalized?

As far as how Franco came to hold far right views, Peter says he doesn’t understand. But he wonders if maybe it started with his grandfather who he said was close to Franco.

Franco’s grandfather died in 2005. But I was able to find out a few things about him. He was a member of the Nazi party. I found his membership card at the National Archives. He joined in 1939. I also visited his grave, and carved into the stone where Norse runes that were popular among the SS, the Nazi party’s elite forces. When I spoke to Franco’s mom, she told me that her father and Franco had been close. They all lived in the same apartment building, and Franco’s own father left when he was young. I asked her about the copy of Mein Kampf police found when they were investigating Franco, and she said it originally belonged to her father.

Franco denies that his grandfather was a big part of his life, but he acknowledges that they had spent time together, and that his grandfather would tell him stories about his adventures in the war. In one voice memo from 2015, Franco recounts standing by his grandfather’s grave and thanking him for his guidance. I don’t know for sure what influence his grandfather had on Franco, but the shadow of German history is long, and the way it’s embedded in so many German families, it can lay dormant for a generation, and then come alive again.

Whatever set Franco on his far right course, it was early. He was only 17 when in the privacy of his diary, he began contemplating different ways to change the course of German history. He wrote, one would be to become a soldier, and gain an influential position in the military so that I can head the German armed forces, a path that I can very well imagine, and that I also think I would be able to do successfully. That would be followed by a military coup.

All historically significant leaders made their way to the top with the help of the military — for example, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Adolf Hitler, and to a certain extent, Alexander the Great.

Franco showed me this diary entry. He said these were just the musings of an immature teenager. But a couple of years after he wrote that, in 2008, Franco joined the German military. It’s a military unlike any other in the world. After the war, the Allies banned Germany from having a military altogether. But 10 years later, as the Cold War was heating up, it was resurrected and instilled with new core principles. Traditions and symbols from the Nazi era, like swastikas and runes, were taboo.

Soldiers were required to swear an oath on the new Democratic Constitution, and they were taught not to blindly follow orders, but to follow a moral compass defined by the Constitution. This became known as inner guidance. They weren’t just soldiers. They were citizens in uniform.

Franco excelled in the military.

He was quickly selected as one of only a handful of German officer cadets to attend the prestigious Saint Cyr Military Academy. It’s like the West Point of France. Franco spent five years abroad, and as part of his military training, he also attended some of Europe’s best universities. He started studying things like nationalism and world politics, and he told me he wasn’t satisfied with conventional explanations for things like 9/11, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So he decided to go and search for answers himself. Sometimes online.

At the end of 2013, he submitted a master’s thesis, titled “Political Change and Strategy of Subversion,” in which he publicly laid out his far right worldview for the first time. I have a copy of it. In his thesis, Franco writes about powerful elites who were secretly acting to weaken society in order to maximize their control. He points to big sweeps of migration as one of the ways they do that.

He writes that the downfall of great civilizations has always been the dilution of racial purity.

That migration was a form of genocide, and that Europe and the West were next in line if they didn’t defend themselves. The French commander of the military academy was appalled. He immediately flagged it to Franco’s German superiors. He told them that if this was a French participant, we would remove him. The German military commissioned an historian to review the thesis. After three days, he concluded that the thesis was not an academic qualification paper, but a radical nationalist racist appeal. Franco was summoned for questioning by a military attorney, who told him that his thesis was not compatible with the German Constitution. Franco defended himself by saying that as the second best student in his class, he felt pressure to create something great. And in the end, the military attorney came to the conclusion that Franco had become a victim of his own intellectual abilities.

No one informed the office that’s in charge of monitoring extremism and the German military.

Franco was allowed to submit a new thesis, and by the time he returned to Germany, it was as if nothing had happened. His superior in Dresden described him as a model German soldier, a citizen in uniform.

A few months later in 2015 —

Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would take in hundreds of thousands of refugees who had come to Europe from Syria and Afghanistan.

It’s around this time that Franco would join a chat network run by a special forces soldier with the nickname Hannibal.

And in this network, he found other soldiers and police officers with far right views. They were preparing for civil unrest, for the breakdown of social order, for something they called Day X. Franco was preparing too. He showed us his prepper cellar.

franco a.

We have electric generator.

katrin bennhold

The same place he had stashed stolen ammunition and explosives.

franco a.

And this is where actually this book, Mein Kampf, was.

katrin bennhold

And his grandfather’s copy of Mein Kampf.

franco a.

And these are these cowboy matches.

katrin bennhold

We saw stockpiles of food and medicines.

franco a.

Machetes I might have them here.

katrin bennhold

And a machete he’d strategically hidden.

franco a.

Ammo for the air gun.

katrin bennhold

You can’t kill people with that.

franco a.

” Well, maybe — no, actually not.

katrin bennhold

The particular branch of Hannibal’s network that Franco belonged to, the Southern branch, had actually written out a plan for Day X. It says the plan would be activated 12 hours after the national cell phone network was down, or four hours after the people who run the network had declared a state of emergency. It gives precise geocoordinates for a place to gather, and the idea was to take people from there to a safe house. What the plan called a group hideout.

franco a.

Then you can use it as a radio.

katrin bennhold

It also lists a radio frequency to communicate on, and to distinguish between friends and enemies. Group members were given a code and told to wear a special patch.

The police later found one of these patches at Franco’s house.

But prosecutors argue that Franco wasn’t just preparing for a crisis. He wanted to trigger one.

In December 2015, as Germany’s immigration office was totally overwhelmed with the influx of refugees —

franco a.

I put on racks.

katrin bennhold

— Franco disguised himself.

franco a.

I made my beard a bit black. I blackened my beard with shoe polish.

katrin bennhold

He put shoe polish in his beard.

franco a.

And I did a bit of darkening cream in my —

katrin bennhold

And his mother’s makeup on his face and hands.

franco a.

Gave me a form to fill in.

katrin bennhold

In broken English, he told a police officer in his hometown, that he had fled the war in Syria and lost his papers along the way. He was photographed and fingerprinted.

Soon after, he qualified for benefits and housing, and eventually was granted the status to live and work in Germany. He had created an entirely new identity for himself.

And as he was living this double life, splitting his time between the military base and the housing he’d been given as a refugee, none of Franco’s military superiors reported any suspicious behavior.

Instead, he was being considered for a promotion to platoon leader.

Prosecutors believe Franco was planning an attack that was meant to be blamed on his fake refugee identity and create a national backlash against immigrants. Franco told me the whole fake refugee stunt was an undercover investigation of chancellor Merkel’s migration policy. He said he’d planned to publish a report.

He never did. But it’s actually become his main line of defense in court. What his lawyers have argued is that Chancellor Merkel’s immigration policy endangered national security.

franco a.

And against the will and the good of the German people.

katrin bennhold

Franco gave me this argument too.

franco a.

Am I serving the right ones or not?

katrin bennhold

He said that as a soldier who swore an oath to protect the Constitution —

franco a.

You need to put into question the way —

katrin bennhold

— he was doing what he was trained to do.

franco a.

This is what we are supposed to do as officers, this is why we are officers.

katrin bennhold

And following his inner guidance.

franco a.

In order to keep the standards high.

katrin bennhold

Franco argued that he was protecting the state.

katrin bennhold

You know, I think one of the sentences that stand out the most —

katrin bennhold

But in his voice memos, he advocates for destroying it.

katrin bennhold

The state, and this is everybody who contributes to destroy this construct of a state does something good. I mean, that’s a call to arms.

Laws are null and void. I mean, how is that defending the Constitution?

katrin bennhold

When I asked him about this, he had no answer.

This is what infiltration looks like. People in uniform who say they’re defending their country, and at the same time, they see themselves at war with the very values they’re supposed to protect.

Whatever the outcome of Franco’s trial, it represents something much bigger than the terrorism case against him. Because, while his case is exceptional, some of his views aren’t.

katrin bennhold

Oh, there we are. I think that’s it.

katrin bennhold

In the months leading up to Franco’s trial, I finally got some answers about how serious the threat of far right infiltration really is.

katrin bennhold

They’re already waiting for us, look at that. They’re going to shut us off immediately.

[speaking german]

katrin bennhold

“Day X” is made by Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Kaitlin Roberts, Larissa Anderson, Michael Benoist, and me, Katrin Bennhold. Additional reporting by Chris Schutze. Engineered by Dan Powell. Original music by Hauschka and Dan Powell. Research and fact checking by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Liz O. Baylen, Lisa Tobin, Mark Georges, Anita Badejo, Rachelle Bonja, Soraya Shockley, Lauren Jackson, Nora Keller, Des Ibekwe, Julia Simon, Tanjev Schultz, Jörg Echternkamp, Miro Dittrich, Michael Slackman, Jim Yardley, Kirk Kraeutler, Sam Dolnick, Matt Purdy and Cliff Levy.

The problem of far-right infiltration in the German military and police is far greater than it seemed. One of those threats is Alternative for Germany, widely known by its German initials AfD. Germany is trying to address the threats.

Day X Poster

Released on June 24, 2021.
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0:00/38:13
-38:13

transcript

Released on June 24, 2021.

archived recording

[CROWD CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

A year and a half into my reporting, in late August, 2020, tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Berlin —

archived recording

[SHOUTING IN GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

— protesting the government’s coronavirus lockdown measures. There were anti-vaxxers, QAnon followers, several thousand members of the far-right scene.

archived recording

(SHOUTING) [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Some of these groups have been chatting on Telegram, calling for a storm on Berlin and posting images of themselves with their weapons. And as the day went on, a few hundred of them gathered directly in front of Germany’s parliament building — the Reichstag.

archived recording

[CHEERING]

katrin bennhold

Most of them were white men, many of them from far-right groups. They were waving the old black, white, and red flag of the German empire that once inspired the Nazis, and it’s now become the flag of choice for neo-Nazis because the swastika is banned.

And it’s that evening, hours into the protest, when a woman got up on stage in front of the Capitol and told the crowd, we are writing history in Berlin here today. There are no more police.

archived recording

[SHOUTING IN GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

We have won.

archived recording

[CHEERING]

katrin bennhold

The crowd went wild, and just like that, they headed straight for the Reichstag.

Shouting things like, [SPEAKING GERMAN] Resistance. And [SPEAKING GERMAN] We are the people. They broke through the police barrier and ran up the main stairs.

archived recording

[CHEERING] [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And when they made it to the top in front of the main entrance to parliament, some of them tried to get inside. The only thing stopping them were three police officers, who were able to hold the line until backup arrived.

The whole thing only lasted for a few minutes, but it led Germany’s president to call it an unbearable attack on the heart of democracy. It all happened four months before rioters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, some with military and police backgrounds.

And it all made me think, how my reporting on far-right infiltration had started — with a gun in an airport bathroom and a military officer accused of wanting to bring down the Federal Republic of Germany.

[music]

In many ways, Franco A.‘s case felt exceptional, but the attempted storming of the Reichstag and everything else I’ve seen in my reporting made it clear that it’s not. And so I wasn’t all that surprised when I learned that at the demonstrations in Berlin, there were several police officers, military reservists, and people who fantasized about the day when the democratic order collapses. From The New York Times, I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is Day X.

When I started my reporting on Franco A., it was clear that the institutions responsible for identifying him, let alone the network his case uncovered, were largely blind to the threat of far-right extremism. Two years later, after everything that’s happened, I wanted to see how much that’s changed.

kaitlin roberts

We want to figure out —

katrin bennhold

So. Oh there we are. I think that’s it.

katrin bennhold

In April 2021, producer Kaitlin Roberts and I go to the military counterintelligence agency.

katrin bennhold

Oh. They’re already waiting for us. Look at that. They’re going to shut us off immediately.

kaitlin roberts

OK.

katrin bennhold

It’s the smallest of Germany’s three federal intelligence agencies, and one of its core missions is to monitor extremism inside the military.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

[music]

katrin bennhold

This is the first time they’re speaking to me on the record, and the interview is tightly controlled. We’re not allowed to ask about Franco A., because it’s an ongoing case. We actually had to submit all our questions in advance, and we can’t turn our recorder back on —

katrin bennhold

Are we rolling? OK.

katrin bennhold

— until we’re walking up to the conference room —

katrin bennhold

Hello. [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Where we meet one of the vice presidents,

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Burkhard Even.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He’s a civilian and has only been there for two years. He was brought in as part of a sweeping effort to address the agency’s failures in how it handled far-right extremism. And the first question I have for him is the same one I started with two years ago.

katrin bennhold

When I first called the Defense Ministry, the guy I spoke to told me the confirmed number of extremists was in single digits and falling. He said there were four. What are the latest numbers? How many cases of extremism are you looking at inside the German military today?

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Burkhard tells me that the number of far-right extremists they’ve identified in the military has grown significantly. The most recent data they have shows 32 confirmed cases and 843 suspected ones.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And he says about two dozen of those are in the most elite and highly-trained unit, the KSK.

[music]

The unit has become a special focus after a series of scandals. Several soldiers were reported to have flashed Hitler salutes at a party, and at least one of them had stolen military-grade plastic explosives, an AK-47, and collected S.S. memorabilia. They also discovered that nearly 50,000 rounds of ammunition and 137 pounds of explosives had gone missing from their arsenal. It reached the point where the defense minister took the unprecedented step to disband an entire fighting company — one of only four — because it had become so infested with far-right extremism.

And of course, the far-right network Franco A. was a part of was started by a KSK soldier, which led me to another question I had for Burkhard.

katrin bennhold

Two years ago, I was told by your agency that you did not see a network. But I found in my reporting that there was, in fact, a network of people who knew each other across the country. Do you see a network?

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Burkhard tells me that the agency now sees networks. He says that, for a long time, it overwhelmingly treated suspected cases as single cases — [SPEAKING GERMAN] But they now make it a point to systematically study how all these cases are related.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And not only that. He acknowledges that some of these networks stretch beyond the military into other state institutions and also civilian life.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And so they’ve started working much more closely with the domestic intelligence agency and law enforcement to avoid extremists slipping through the net.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

As he’s telling me this, it sounds to me like the case of Franco A. and the network it uncovered has fundamentally shifted how the agency understands the nature of the threat.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Burkhard says that essentially, their definition of what an extremist is, had been far too narrow.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

It used to be that an extremist was defined as someone who belonged to an extremist organization and was ready to commit violence.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But now, he says, an extremist is anyone who’s disloyal to the constitution or doesn’t actively stand up for its values. It’s a definition that better reflects what the far-right can look like today, the kind of new right who often don’t have a formal affiliation with an extremist organization, but have anti constitutional views all the same — people like Franco A. or the people who tried to storm the Reichstag.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

kaitlin roberts

So some newspapers have called this network a shadow army. Are you concerned that there is such a thing as a shadow army?

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

When I ask Burkhard if he’s concerned about a shadow army, he’s adamant that the networks they’ve identified don’t rise to that level.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But he says, it’s still a threat.

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Because there are people who dream of forming one.

[music]

burkhard even

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

The question of a shadow army was something parliament had been looking into, too.

katrin bennhold

Here we go. He’s just down there on the left.

katrin bennhold

When I began my reporting, the committee in charge of overseeing the intelligence agencies, including military counterintelligence, had already started their own investigation.

katrin bennhold

I think it’s the next one.

katrin bennhold

So we went to see the deputy chair of that committee.

konstantin von notz

I’m Konstantin von Notz. And I’m since 2009 here in the German Bundestag for the Green Party.

katrin bennhold

Konstantin von Notz.

katrin bennhold

And so you launched that report —

katrin bennhold

Konstantin’s committee had asked a special investigator to look into how serious the infiltration of the military was. And he came to a somewhat different conclusion than what I’d heard from Burkhard.

katrin bennhold

And what did you find?

konstantin von notz

One of the headlines after this report was that there was no shadow army that was almost taking over the country. Yeah? But he didn’t say that this does not exist.

[music]

katrin bennhold

While the investigator said, there’s no evidence of a shadow army ready to stage a coup, he said he couldn’t rule one out, either. And his investigation is ongoing.

konstantin von notz

You shouldn’t be [SPEAKING GERMAN], yeah?

katrin bennhold

Reassured.

konstantin von notz

Reassured. You should take serious what’s happening.

katrin bennhold

The word “shadow army” is very loaded in Germany. Because there was something like a shadow army in the 1920s. There were plots to overthrow the government. There were people hoarding weapons and ammunition. And when you hear the word “shadow army” as a German, you do kind of get goosebumps.

konstantin von notz

Oh, you better get goosebumps. Because this is a serious security threat to Germany and to this democratic system. And we have to deal with it.

katrin bennhold

For Konstantin, the infiltration of the military by far right extremists —

konstantin von notz

This is one of the patterns —

katrin bennhold

— is a reflection of a much bigger phenomenon.

konstantin von notz

Members of the [SPEAKING GERMAN].

katrin bennhold

A couple of floors up from his office are offices of the AfD —

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]. [CROWD SHOUTING]

katrin bennhold

The first far right party to be elected to the German parliament since the Nazis.

archived recording

This is a party that didn’t even exist a few years ago.

katrin bennhold

It’s only been around for eight years.

archived recording

It now has seats —

katrin bennhold

But it’s now the main opposition party in the German parliament. And it’s broken every taboo in Germany’s post-war playbook.

archived recording

And some people say they’re a bunch of racists.

katrin bennhold

It’s nationalist —

archived recording

They’ve promised to fight an invasion of foreigners.

katrin bennhold

— anti-immigrant.

archived recording

It plays on real fears about refugees, wants to close mosques, and stop immigration. It staunchly defends the notion of Germany as a Christian state.

katrin bennhold

It challenges Germany’s atonement for the Holocaust.

archived recording

They claim Nazi history takes up too much school time and say the culture of remembrance is bad for Germany.

katrin bennhold

And it has close links to extremists. Several members of [SPEAKING GERMAN], the northern branch of the network Franco A. was a part of, were also members of the AfD. And a friend of Franco A., a fellow officer who was initially accused of being one of his accomplices, was later hired to work inside parliament for an AfD lawmaker, himself a soldier. The party actively recruits police officers and soldiers. And its leaders openly march with extremists on the street. [CROWD SHOUTING] In fact, some of them were among the tens of thousands of people in the crowd on the day that group of protesters tried to storm the Reichstag. [CROWD CHANTING IN GERMAN] And Konstantin points to what happened a few months after that, during another mass demonstration, when AfD lawmakers invited a handful of protesters inside the Parliament building.

konstantin von notz

People were going everywhere and knocking on offices of the parliamentarians, so a strong violation of the integrity of this building.

katrin bennhold

They walked around, shouted derogatory insults at a minister, and intimidated lawmakers before an important vote.

konstantin von notz

And everybody locked their doors so nobody could come in.

katrin bennhold

So your staff locked these doors that we’re seeing here. They locked the doors to make sure?

katrin bennhold

It’s this attitude toward democratic institutions that worries Konstantin.

konstantin von notz

So democracy doesn’t prevent that people get elected that are anti-democratic. People use democracy as a train and when they’re in the train station, they step out.

katrin bennhold

Step out and what would they then —

konstantin von notz

Step off of the train of democracy and they reach their goal with that. And then they [INAUDIBLE].

katrin bennhold

So you use democracy to get into power. And then you get rid of democracy.

konstantin von notz

Yeah. It’s a form of infiltration. And if you look into history, it can be very successful.

katrin bennhold

For Konstantin, all of this comes down to one of the biggest lessons of World War II.

konstantin von notz

In the Weimar Republic, the Nazis were in free elections.

katrin bennhold

That Hitler’s Nazi party was democratically elected. And it was only once they were in office that they abolished democracy.

konstantin von notz

So that’s the reason why we have to understand where the infiltration can happen. We should not be naive.

katrin bennhold

On our way out, Konstantin walks us to the elevator. And he tells us that just a few weeks earlier —

konstantin von notz

I came in here on my regular way to my office. And there was this swastika.

katrin bennhold

Someone had carved a swastika into its metal doors.

konstantin von notz

If you scratch that into a door of the German Parliament, that’s a symbolic attack against democracy. Yeah?

katrin bennhold

The perpetrator was never identified. But given the strict security in the building, there’s a pretty good chance that whoever did this knew someone or was someone working inside Parliament.

archived recording

You have to go one by one. OK.

katrin bennhold

What makes Germany’s democracy so unique is that after the war it was rebuilt to be what’s called a “defensive democracy.”

archived recording

We’ve made it through security.

katrin bennhold

The idea was that because Hitler’s Nazi party was elected, and they only got rid of democracy once they were in government, Germany equipped its democracy with the tools to protect itself against threats from the inside.

katrin bennhold

Tell me where we are inside the domestic intelligence agency.

katrin bennhold

One of these tools is the domestic intelligence agency. It’s actually called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

katrin bennhold

What floor are we going to?

archived recording

The seventh.

katrin bennhold

Like other domestic intelligence agencies, it monitors domestic threats. But it was also set up as a kind of early warning system for democracy, with the power to put individuals, organizations, and even political parties suspected of being a threat to democracy under surveillance. Basically, this office determines who is crossing the line into extremism.

archived recording

He’s here and also — not there.

katrin bennhold

So I went with producers Clare Toeniskoetter and Lynsea Garrison to talk to the man who runs this office.

thomas haldenwang

[INAUDIBLE].

katrin bennhold

Nice to meet you.

katrin bennhold

His name is Thomas Haldenwang.

thomas haldenwang

Pleasure to have you here. But we will do it in German language.

katrin bennhold

OK. So —

katrin bennhold

He’s worked at the agency for over a decade, but only became president in 2018. Both of his predecessors were caught up in scandals involving far right extremism. The first resigned after the office failed in its handling of the NSU murders. And the second was reassigned after playing down anti-immigrant violence during a neo-Nazi riot. He’s since become a hero of the far right.

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And while his predecessors were primarily concerned with Islamist extremism, Thomas has shifted the agency’s focus.

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He says that far right extremism and far right terrorism are now the biggest threats to democracy.

katrin bennhold

Would you say that there’s an increase in the far right terrorist threat in Germany right now?

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He mentions recent terrorist attacks, like the murder of Walter Lübcke, a regional politician supported Chancellor Merkel’s refugee policy and who was shot at close range by a well-known neo-Nazi.

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He also talks about the attack on a synagogue in Halle, where a far right extremist killed two people after his plans for a massacre failed. After these attacks, the spotlight turned to the AfD and its nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, which some people said was empowering extremists to commit violence.

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And by the time we meet with Thomas, his office is already looking into the party.

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

They placed two of the most extreme factions under surveillance, a group known as The Wing, and the youth organization, the young alternative.

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Both factions stood out in the party for their links to extremist groups and for claiming that ethnic and religious differences between people make immigration a threat to Germany, which for Thomas is a violation of the Constitution.

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And in particular, its first article, which states, “the dignity of human beings is untouchable.”

thomas haldenwang

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And for Thomas, where the dignity of people is questioned, where people are degraded and humiliated as a group, that crosses the line into extremism and has the potential of fomenting violence.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

thomas haldenwang

Thank you so much. [VOICES AND FOOTSTEPS ECHOING]

katrin bennhold

Not long after we talked to Thomas —

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

— there was another far-right terrorist attack.

archived recording

I heard a loud shooting.

katrin bennhold

A man walked into two shisha bars in the city of Hanau and shot and killed nine people.

archived recording

He shot straight to the head of everyone he saw. He laid down and then he fired at all of us.

katrin bennhold

All of them with migrant backgrounds.

Before the gunman returned home and shot both himself and his elderly mother, he published a manifesto filled with the same hatred for migrants that is often heard from the AfD.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN] German leaders are calling out the poison that is hatred and racism.

katrin bennhold

The news of the Hanau attack shook Germany.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

The AfD condemned it. But once again — [INTERPOSING VOICES]

archived recording

But the AfD is to blame for creating a basis for exactly the kind of thinking that led to the shootings.

katrin bennhold

Many people said the party’s anti-immigrant rhetoric shared the blame.

archived recording

[INAUDIBLE] incident under the AfD — They should be under surveillance for some of their language.

katrin bennhold

And some started calling on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to put the entire AfD under surveillance.

And then —

archived recording

Well, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has placed the country’s largest opposition party, the far right alternative for Germany, under surveillance.

katrin bennhold

In early 2021, Thomas and his office did.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN] This is a big constitutional step to put a whole party under surveillance.

katrin bennhold

It was the first time in its post-war history that Germany put its main opposition party under surveillance. And it’s probably the most dramatic move by any Western democracy to act against the far right.

archived recording

Intelligence services are now formally monitoring the party for having suspected links to right wing extremism.

katrin bennhold

It meant that the agency could tap phones and emails, and monitor the movements of any of the AfD’s nearly 32,000 members. And if in the end the agency found enough evidence to classify the party as extremist, it would also mean that party members who work for state institutions, like teachers, court officials, police officers, or soldiers, could potentially lose their jobs. The party could even be banned.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN] [CROWD APPLAUDING]

katrin bennhold

The day after the news breaks —

archived recording (bjorn hocke)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

— the AfD holds a rally in Offenbach, the same city Franco A. is from.

archived recording (bjorn hocke)

[SPEAKING GERMAN] [CROWD CHEERING]

katrin bennhold

And the featured speaker is the party’s most notorious figure, Björn Höcke.

He leads the AFD in the state of Thuringia, the same state where the NSU terrorists grew up. He’s a former history teacher who says that Germany needs a 180-degree change in looking at its past. He calls the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin a monument of shame. A few years ago, a German broadcaster read quotes from Höcke to AFD members and asked them whether Höcke or Hitler said it. Most of them were stumped. Bjorn Hocke is so extreme that one court ruled you can legitimately call him a fascist. He denied my request for an interview.

archived recording (bjorn hocke)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But when he addresses the crowd, he says the opposition on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is spying on the AfD, that it is using wartime methods, and that it wants to destroy the party.

archived recording (bjorn hocke)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He says the government is run by politicians who hate Germany and want to destroy the German nation by embracing multiculturalism. So he says the AfD is the only party that loves Germany.

This is labor does have a strong Hi

archived recording (björn höcke.)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING GERMAN] The New York Times.

katrin bennhold

When we talk to people at the rally —

archived recording

It’s a clear danger to free speech and the whole democracy here.

katrin bennhold

— they say the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is wrong to put them under surveillance.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

They say it’s being used as a political instrument of the left.

archived recording

It’s against political culture to suspect that people are criminals just because they are a member of a political party. That’s wrong.

katrin bennhold

And that it’s undermining the Constitution rather than protecting it.

archived recording

They tell us, you’re living in a democracy. But at the same time, they are trying to influence people to change their opinion, to follow, to be quiet, to be good citizens. And you’re only a good citizen if you shut up. [CROWD CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

Some of them question whether they’re living in a democracy at all.

And this, in a way, is the central dilemma of Germany’s defense of democracy. In trying to draw the line on what constitutes extremism, it will be accused of crossing a line itself.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

That’s what the AfD is arguing.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN] In the end, the federal constitutional court will indeed have to decide whether or not a position that is fundamentally critical of government policy is permitted in our liberal democracy.

katrin bennhold

When it became public that the party was now officially suspected of far right extremism and could come under surveillance, they immediately filed a legal challenge, claiming that this could interfere with their chances in the upcoming national election, one of the most pivotal elections in years, as Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves office.

Soon after, a German court ordered the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to suspend their surveillance of the party, pending the outcome of the case. But a handful of states already have their local chapters of the AfD under surveillance —

archived recording

We’re talking about up to 1/4 of the population that has a different point of view and that is opposed —

katrin bennhold

— including the eastern state of Thuringia, where the party gets almost one in four votes, twice the national average. That’s the state where Stephan Kramer heads the regional branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

archived recording

So voters of the AfD, they don’t feel this is a real democracy if it targets the party they vote for. So how do you explain this decision to them?

stephan kramer

That’s exactly what they are saying. They see the federal democracy as a dictatorship. But what we’re talking about is a party that promotes hatred, that promotes racism, that promotes the idea of bypassing and overcoming the principles of a democracy, and that is clearly not within the framework of a democratic exchange of even radical opinions. But yeah, you’re right. It’s hard to explain.

katrin bennhold

Stephan admits that it’s a tough sell telling voters that defending democracy can involve spying on their party of choice.

katrin bennhold

So in many ways, the question is are those tools that this democracy has given itself, are they strong enough?

stephan kramer

Look, this is one of the most severe tests that we are in right now as a defensive democracy. But state agencies, public agencies are only one part of it.

katrin bennhold

He says that even if Germany’s institutions do everything right —

stephan kramer

The general defense line are the citizens and people of the democracies who are supposed to participate in elections in an ongoing democratic society.

katrin bennhold

The institutions alone can’t protect against what once put the Nazis in power in the first place, the people who voted for them.

stephan kramer

If this democracy doesn’t find the majority of citizens that is in favor of it, you can have the best laws and the best agencies. But they will not be able to protect democracy.

katrin bennhold

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution remains locked in a legal tug of war with the AfD. And at a time when the memory of the Nazi era is fading into history, it’s just one of many tests that Germany is facing. The trial of Franco A. is another. Both cases will set a historic precedent and will define the point where people or parties cross the line into extremism and where extremism crosses the line into terrorism. And ultimately, they’ll start to answer whether the institutions Germany put in place after the war are working in the way they’re meant to, or if they’ll provoke an even stronger backlash against liberal democracy itself.

stephan kramer

You look on Germany, if you look on Europe, the house is on fire. This was long before you had your problems with QAnon and the extreme right that is now basically understood as domestic terrorism in the United States of America. And I admit, nobody of us thought the pictures of storming Capitol Hill and everything else, that that could happen in the United States. But I’m not surprised anymore. And I’m afraid to tell you guys and our guys, this is not the end of the story. We’re just in the middle of that fight.

katrin bennhold

In June 2021, over four years after Franco A.‘s arrest and the discovery of a nationwide network of far right extremists, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution released its latest report. And in some ways, it looks like previous reports. It has the usual statistics, the number of suspected far right extremists is now up to 33,000. And 40% of them are ready to commit violence.

But this time, there’s a new section on the new right. And it lists a whole range of targets the Office now has under surveillance. A far right think tank, a far right magazine, a far right publishing house, a far right marketing group — it’s basically watching the entire ecosystem of far right extremism.

And then there’s something else, another new section that talks about extremists inside Germany’s security agencies. It talks about far right chat groups and threat letters signed NSU 2.0, about police officers hoarding weapons and ammunition. It says there are around 1,400 cases of far right extremists who have infiltrated the military, police, and other state institutions. The report warns that these people who have special training, access to weapons, and sensitive information represent a significant danger for the state and for society. And it raises the alarm about the day many of them are preparing for, or even trying to trigger, Day X.

Day X is made by Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Kaitlin Roberts, Larissa Anderson, Michael Benoist, and me, Katrin Bennhold. Additional reporting by Chris Schuetze. Engineered by Dan Powell. Original music by Hauschka and Dan Powell. Research and fact checking by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Liz Baylen, Lisa Tobin, Marc Georges, Claudine Ebeid, Anita Badejo, Rachelle Bonja, Stella Tan, Soraya Shockley, Lauren Jackson, Nora Keller, Des Ibekwe, Julia Simon, Kate Nordstrom, Eva Hugo, Tanjev Schultz, Jörg Echtemkamp, Miro Dittrich, Uli Jentsch, Michael Slackman, Jim Yardley, Kirk Kraeutler, Sam Dolnick, Matt Purdy, and Cliff Levy.

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