The terror suspected lieutenant in the Bundeswehr Franco A. did not explain on Friday why he had a plastic bag full of Nazi memorabilia with him when he was provisionally arrested at an S-Bahn station in Offenbach in mid-February.

His defense attorney had announced that there could be a statement on this.

But in the hearing before the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court, where the officer has had to answer since May 2021 on charges of preparing a serious act of violence that is dangerous to the state, there were none.

At least not one that was discussed and structured with the defense.

Anna Sophia Lang

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Coincidentally, the defendant suddenly started talking about the Nazi memorabilia in response to a completely different matter.

He had it with him when he returned from a visit to Strasbourg.

The Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD), who monitored A., saw him coming out of a comrade's apartment with the bag.

A. said Friday the items came from an estate of "elderly relatives" who were no longer alive.

A relative gave him the things.

Who the people are exactly, where the objects come from, how they came into As's possession and why they were in Strasbourg, he did not want to say, despite repeated, intensive inquiries.

A. also did not answer the question as to why he brought the objects to Offenbach towards the end of the trial, which is ultimately also about whether he acted out of a nationalist and anti-Semitic sentiment.

The presiding judge had already tried to get an answer on the previous day of the hearing, but without success.

On Friday he tried again with vigor and in all clarity.

However, as so often, Franco A. got caught up in excessive explanations that raised more questions than they gave answers.

"Hectic buzz"

"I wasn't concerned with the orders," he said, but with "primarily personal" records that he hadn't seen in five years.

He didn't even know what the orders were about.

It may not be logical that he also took the Nazi memorabilia with him, but it proves nothing.

The books that were among them - including "Des Führers Kampf in Belgium" - he had never read, just as he had never read "Mein Kampf" found in his basement in Offenbach, "only opened once".

All of these are just indications.

After all, he didn't have a Nazi shrine.

When the presiding judge then asked again about the origin of the objects, A. said he did not want to soil the memories of his relatives.

"Then you take the risk that we don't believe you," said the judge.

The State Protection Senate suspects that A. also stashed weapons at an unknown location.

A. has admitted to having owned it, but does not reveal what he did with it.

"Whenever it gets specific, you get vague," the judge told the defendant, trying to get him to come clean.

"Everything that happens here is your destiny."

When A. then, although the meeting had already been interrupted, suddenly spoke of an attic, but then again didn't, the chairman finally had enough.

A. should stop with the "hectic babble" and finally sit down with his defense attorneys to prepare a structured statement.

"Maybe it will do you some good."