Dresden. They demonstrate Sunday after Sunday – and attack journalists whose job it is to get an idea. The police call the participants in the Laubegast Sunday walks “Corona deniers”. Even on February 13, 2022, the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden, around 200 people walked through their neighborhood without police escort during their unregistered meeting. In the middle of it all were Marcus Fuchs from the Querdenken Dresden initiative and Max Schreiber, Pirna district chairman of the right-wing extremist “Free Saxony”.
On that day of remembrance, several journalists decided to document this demonstration. But they were soon insulted, threatened and chased away. They eventually stopped working to protect themselves. That day, two men are said to have physically attacked a 38-year-old guard accompanying the photographers.
So on Friday, more than two years later, the trial against the two 45 and 47 year old defendants began: They are accused of coercion and attempted bodily harm. One is said to have kicked the 38-year-old, the other hit him with his bicycle chain lock, but did not hit him. According to the indictment, the journalists were insulted and threatened with words such as “Turn off the damn camera,” “Fuck off,” and “Get the fuck out.”
Initially, Max Schreiber (36) and his brother (33) were also charged. But because the Dresden public prosecutor’s office brought further charges against both of them at the end of 2023 for, among other things, dangerous bodily harm, the court separated the brothers from the older case. The Schreiber brothers will have to answer separately in court and then for a whole series of other allegations.
The brothers were not invited to the trial against their alleged accomplices on Friday. They shouldn’t have had to testify anyway because no one has to incriminate themselves. The two defendants initially denied the allegations. 45-year-old Steve H., who called himself a part-time caretaker and bodyguard, claimed it was his first time at such a demonstration: “Everything was new to me.”
First time at a demo?
In fact, Steve H. was already a speaker on a lateral thinker stage in front of the Palace of Culture in October 2021 at the latest, where he thought about the consequences of corona vaccinations. There are videos from a Tag24 reporter on “X”, then “Twitter”. H. is also said to have worked as Fuchs’ bodyguard, possibly only after the riots in Laubegast.
However, no one was interested in this during his trial. “I wanted to see for myself,” said H. about the Sunday afternoon in Laubegast. The “so-called press representatives” – that was his standard formulation to the journalists, there was no one from ZDF or RTL on site, as he said – were aggressive and approached very closely. Someone shouted: “They’re not allowed to take pictures!” He didn’t know that that was completely wrong.
“That’s enough,” someone shouted. Then a group broke away from the demo and ran towards the photographers. Yes, he ran along too. “I may have shouted ‘go away’, ‘leave me alone’ or ‘fuck off’.” He had nothing to do with it and walked past on the left to look at “the upcoming spectacle”. It has become increasingly aggressive. The 38-year-old then attacked him three times with pepper spray. H. says he turned away and stepped backwards.
According to H., he did not behave aggressively and had his hands in his pockets: “My job as a bodyguard is to have a de-escalating effect,” he claimed. The group of journalists, on the other hand, withdrew “in formation” and “they had the opportunity to escape,” said the defendant. H. himself admitted that he had “run at the head of the group of pursuers, but had no explanation for it. The public prosecutor said: “The ‘fuck off’ you said contradicts itself.”
“It looked like a hunt”
A 54-year-old witness who observed the demonstration on Laibacher Strasse from close up said that a smaller group of around six people were followed by a larger one. “It looked like a hunt,” she said. According to her observation, the pursuers were running “in formation”, not the fleeing journalists.
After a legal discussion, the court discontinued the proceedings against H., who had no previous conviction, in exchange for a payment of 1,000 euros to “Reporters Without Borders”. “You must accept a certain level of involvement,” said the judge. Co-plaintiff lawyer Mark Feilitzsch criticized the decision, simply because his client, the escort, had not yet been heard. The attack on journalists was of “some intensity” and was carried out based on an ideology. H. contributed to the anti-press climate at these demos.
The second defendant, Sven K., also claimed that he had nothing to do with the disputes and that he did not even notice anything about them. He was there too late and was talking to an acquaintance. As he tried to leave the demonstration on his bike, he was attacked with pepper spray. “He fell over and was attacked again when he got up,” said his defender Thomas Moschke. K. may have raised his hand with the bicycle lock in a defensive position. However, he did not strike. He initially did not want to name the names of demo participants who could testify to this.
The 38-year-old co-plaintiff said that he, another escort and the journalists knew that it was not a safe operation in Laubegast. There were soon “attempts at intimidation” on site; some participants in the demo were already masked. The journalists were then pushed away at an intersection by Max Schreiber and others. Schreiber pushed him, which is why he defended himself with gas, according to the co-plaintiff.
“Three-two-one attack!”
They were pushed back perhaps 100 meters by the Schreiber brothers, H. and three masked people, then Max Schreiber said “‘three – two – one – attack!’ counted down” to initiate an attack. They were already a long way from the demonstration and no journalist was able to work anymore. His group deliberately kept their distance and did not raise their hands so as not to appear aggressive. “We always had our hands on the sides of our bodies when attacking – always,” he said.
Then the cyclist, Sven K., fell in front of him. He went to him to help him up – but K. reached out twice with the chain and hit him. “I was able to fend off the blows,” said the 38-year-old.
A video that can still be found on “X” today shows some of the attacks, including how Schreiber counts down. It was now shown in the courtroom. However, K’s alleged beatings cannot be seen in it, as the video begins immediately after this situation. However, Marcus Fuchs can be seen in the background, who apparently also recorded the scene with his cell phone. Interesting: Only last fall, Fuchs was convicted in the second instance because he appeared as an informal leader of the unregistered demo at such a Laubegast demo a week earlier, on February 6, 2022. Fuchs had announced that he would not accept this verdict either.
Several witnesses, an escort and two journalists, said that they had noticed K’s hitting movement with the chain out of the corner of their eyes or from some distance away. They didn’t become any clearer – but it was enough for the public prosecutor to be convinced that K. could now be dealing with attempted dangerous bodily harm. An attitude like H.’s case would be out of the question.
Defense attorney Moschke therefore requested that additional witnesses, the participants not initially named by K., be called. Co-plaintiff Feilitzsch demanded that Marcus Fuchs doesn’t necessarily need to be invited, but his video could be an educational aid.
The process continues.
2024-04-13 15:16:41
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