"Mein Kampf" in the can

Guilty of Nazi signs: “It’s really annoying”

The defendant (right) with lawyer Harald Korp (left)

(Bild: laumat, Krone KREATIV)

"It really sucks," were the last words of a Bandido rocker who stood before the jury court in Wels for Nazi reactivation. He wasn't referring to the verdict, as the guilty verdict was inevitable due to confessions. Rather, it was his past - sending Nazi signs and pictures and possession of weapons - that caught up with him. He only fought for an acquittal because of the "Mein Kampf" books. 

The accused, who has a very conspicuous but criminally irrelevant tattoo on his head, has two previous convictions for violations of the Weapons Act. "I knew that I shouldn't have had the weapons," said the accused when he was asked about a pistol, a revolver and a knuckleduster that had been found in his house on June 26 of the previous year. "But the knuckleduster is more of a Kirtag knuckle-duster, with which you hurt yourself more." And he found the weapons at his wife's grandfather's house and took them with him.

Brass knuckles are more like Kirtag knuckles that you use to hurt yourself.

Der Angeklagte vor Gericht

Largely confessed
The accused also confessed to the accusations of sending pictures with swastikas or SS runes and acting as the moderator of a relevant Telegram group: "That was nonsense. Now I distance myself from it." There is only one accusation that the well-trained 39-year-old has not confessed to: that he had eight Nazi-related books, including two copies of "Mein Kampf", openly displayed in his bedroom. "I got my house from my grandfather and he still lives with us. The books were already on the shelf and I didn't pay any attention to them. I didn't want to throw my grandparents' books away." "There were 100 to 120 books on the shelf, the books mentioned were somewhere in between, not explicitly highlighted," said lawyer Harald Korp, who agreed with the public prosecutor that the trial would only be about the two Hitler books.

"Expect no mercy"
His client, the 39-year-old, is by no means a blank slate, in the truest sense of the word. Because the "Expect no mercy" badge can only be worn by rockers who have committed a serious crime. Whether he is referring to a mass brawl between various rocker gangs - Bandidos, Broncos and Hells Angels - in Switzerland may be clarified at the trial in Wels. The 40-year-old is accused of crimes under the Prohibition Act and the Weapons Act.

An arsenal of weapons worth 1.5 million euros was found during the rocker investigations - the bandido accused in Wels only had a pistol and a revolver at home.

(Bild: BMI)

Rocker war prevented
It all came to light when the 40-year-old member of the numerous Bandidos was targeted by the judiciary when 13 house searches were carried out on suspected Nazi rockers in Upper Austria the previous year. At that time, weapons worth more than one million euros and relevant Nazi "works" were confiscated.

The police assume that this blow to the rocker milieu prevented a biker war. The Bandidos had planned to set up a bastion in Austria, where the Hells Angels are in charge.

Mild sentence
The weapons found on the first accused bandido were not a determining factor in the sentence, as the Prohibition Act stipulates between six months and ten years in prison for a guilty verdict. After just 75 minutes, the jury retired to deliberate. And returned with a lenient verdict: acquittal for the "Mein Kampf" books, no serious qualification under the Prohibition Act and therefore only a sentence of six months to five years following the reform of this legal norm.

The verdict - the jury had always decided unanimously: ten months conditional imprisonment and a fine of 1440 euros (not legally binding).