The Oktoberfest bombing and the double murder in Erlangen
How far-right extremism and anti-Semitism were overlooked since 1980
by Ulrich Chaussy
On September 26, 1980, a bombing at the Oktoberfest in Munich kills 13 people, and on December 19 the first anti-Semitic murders in Germany since World War II were committed in Erlangen. Far-right extremists were involved in both crimes. Gundolf Köhler planted the bomb in Munich, Uwe Behrendt is said to have shot the rabbi of Nürnberg Shlomo Lewin and his partner Frida Poeschke. Both terrorists were connected to the far-right brigade Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann. However, both men apparently planned and executed their attacks alone. The leader of the far-right brigade, Karl-Heinz Hoffmann, was found not guilty of the incitement to murder by the district court in Nürnberg. Chaussy uncovers the dramatic failure of the investigators and courts and he shows how both crimes are connected to each other. The bombing of Munich cannot have been planned and executed by one person alone and the anti-Semitic hatred that drove the shooter in Erlangen was not his own idea. Like in 1980 the myth of a terrorist acting alone is till preventing the understanding of far-right attacks and anti-Semitic murder.