The Daily - Day X, Part 1: Shadow Army?

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

This episode contains strong language. The mysterious story of a German soldier, a faked Syrian identity and a loaded gun in an airport bathroom cracks the door open to a network of far-right extremists inside the German military and the police. They are preparing for the day democracy collapses — a day they call Day X. But just how dangerous are they?See all episodes of Day X at nytimes.com/dayx

Today, episode one of our new series, Day X. Okay, let's go down here. This is where it happened. Should we go inside? Yeah. One day in January 2017, a maintenance guy was doing his daily round at the Vienna airport. He walks into a single-person bathroom.

I think this is it. And opens a small door on the back wall to access some pipes. And inside... That's where they found the gun. 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. But 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. 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. But the story about this military officer, known publicly as Franco A., catches fire in the press. Authorities say the suspect was conspiring to assassinate top politicians and then put the blame on refugees. And the military panics. They start searching barracks for evidence of far-right extremism. And they find plenty. 41 items of memorabilia were found.

The defense minister publicly states that the German military has a problem. They have looked into almost 300 soldiers with possible neo-Nazi views. It's a problem that has only grown more urgent. The Capitol riots of January 6th put a spotlight on military extremism. And not just in Germany. 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 down to admit they had a problem. Never has this been more important than now as we face potential threats from within. 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 Benhold. This is Day X. So should I just go? You tell me. Yeah, you can just go.

Okay. 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. 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, the story took another turn.

Reports started saying that Franco A. was part of a nationwide, far-right network. With dozens of soldiers and police officers, all organized on encrypted telegram chats. Some even call this network a shadow army. That really stopped me. Because in Germany, shadow army evokes history. 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.

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. So. Hello, good day, this is Katrin Benhold from the New York Times. Hello, this is Katrin Benhold. Hello, your number is... I start doing my own reporting. Guten Tag, hier ist nochmal Katrin Benholdt. Katrin Benholdt hier von der New York Times.

Katrin Benholdt von der New York Times. To figure out if there really is a far-right network inside the military. And if so, how would you qualify? Just how serious or dangerous is it? Just how serious or dangerous is it? 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. My contact here has arrived. I may have to stop recording, but I'm just going to see how far I get. I talk with intelligence officials and law enforcement

Okay, to be continued. And get my hands on a number of evidence files from the Franco A investigation. Here's an interesting thing about this gun. 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 KSK, basically Germany's Navy SEALs. So I reach out to the KSK, and after several requests, I get an interview with the unit's commander. We meet at a restaurant near the base, and he shows up late. 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 KSK soldiers were accused of flashing Hitler salutes. This is part of a problem he openly acknowledges. He admits that the KSK struggles with extremism more than other units. And when I ask him if there really is a shadow army, he tells me he doesn't know. But it worries him. Not just as the head of the special forces, but also as a citizen.

Around the same time, I get a hold of the KSK guy who started the Telegram network Franco A was a part of. His name is André Schmidt, but on Telegram, he goes by Hannibal. Is that a real name? It's a nickname. I have many nicknames. When I talked with him, he was no longer in the military. And as for a shadow army, he just rolls his eyes at me.

The story he tells is that he created this telegram network for soldiers and police officers. And it really exploded in 2015. 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. In Hannibal's case, he claimed he had privileged information. He'd post about supposed threats from terrorists, sleeper cells, immigrant gangs. I've seen a federal police interview where he actually admits to deliberately inflating these supposed threats. And as the network grew,

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. 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. Their shore is coming. They all have weapons and they claim they just want to protect themselves and their families. But there's one guy, I have look there's the sign, who tells a different story.

That's where we need to go. 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. Is it going to be weird if I'm wearing all of this gear when we meet him? I mean, no, I think it's okay. I think it's okay. The source producer Caden 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. 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. He's distanced 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. If he says hi, it's fine, right? Because we're getting in.

So we bring along our colleague Chris. He doesn't want any of his voice. Oh, I see. To translate and act as the source's voice on tape. I think that might be him. Good? Okay, here we go. We all get into the source's car.

Roll up the windows. Yeah. So maybe we can start by identifying yourself. And Chris starts to translate the source's story. So I was a member of a chat group from 2015 to 2017. It starts in a familiar place. There was a big change in 2015. He says, like a lot of the other members I talked to,

that he was worried about immigration. He didn't trust the politicians or the media. And so when a friend told him about Nordkreuz, he joined. Yeah. Maybe I'll just ask generally. So tell us about the first time that you physically met people in the group. And können Sie uns das erste Mal beschreiben und so ein bisschen Ihre Eindrücke, das allererste Treffen, wo Sie diese... And he tells me what happens at his first meeting. The first meeting that I went to, there were about 15 people there. And it's like any of those meetings

where you're sort of 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 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.

Do you remember what was discussed during that first meeting? So the agenda on the first meeting, I remember, was an attack. It was the Bataclan. 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.

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? And then he says, the group starts talking about how to prepare for something they call... Day X. Day X. The day where there's some kind of attack.

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. For us, 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 state and it would lead to the breakdown of public order. The trigger for Day X can be anything. A power cut. A natural catastrophe. A terrorist attack. A pandemic. So the group was preparing for this Day X.

What exactly were you guys doing at the time? A suggestion was made to collect money for food and diesel. The source says that throughout 2016, Nordkreuz members prepare for Day X. They stockpile food, fuel, weapons and ammunition. And we would talk about a place that we could hide. And secure a safe house. An old, disused vacation camp surrounded by forests. The group also doubles in size.

Did you ever see anything that worried you in the communication? Yeah. And as it grows, he says... The comments became harsher and harsher. So does its anger. 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. Do you want to say what we're doing? Why the car is on? So we're, um, our source has another meeting and so we're going to use the time on the road to keep talking. 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 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 refugees. And looking at the charts, it was clear that these names were people who were considered enemies. Enemies who at some future date would have to be dealt with. 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. So I heard about this meeting. So there was the lawyer and also policemen, a couple of 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? Then he tells me something that happened at another meeting. 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 quick climb 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 fall weather. And do you buy this kind of innocent motive for ordering body bags? I mean, I have to say, body bags, 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 were pushing for this. And the majority of the group were pushing for this. 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 named Heiko Boehringer. So maybe you could just start by introducing yourself. Hi, I'm Heiko. I live in the north of Germany. My family lives here. My children grew up here. And it is a good place to live and work.

For me, it is paradise on earth. I called him at home. And I asked him to tell me this story. How did you get into local politics? Of how he ended up on this list. Heiko says that 10 years ago, when he got involved in local politics, 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. And not long after he gets elected on the city council, he gets a letter in the mail. 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. So he calls the police. And within an hour, they arrive at his house and check things out. Later that afternoon, they return.

They ask him where all the doors are, where he sleeps. They even draw a sketch of his house, saying that if ever there were an emergency, they could react quickly and better protect him. By the time they leave, Heiko says, he felt reassured. After that, he doesn't get any more threats. And he kind of stops worrying about it. Until 2019.

When he gets a notice from the federal police summoning him as a witness in connection with a terrorism investigation. What was your reaction? Was haben Sie da gedacht? Da standen ja zwei Namen drüber mit. 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 had heard about Nordkreuz before and thought they were basically harmless.

Just some crazy guys who play adventure games and do shooting practice out in the woods. But he's seeing articles about how this group was preparing for day X. And he realizes, whatever's going on is pretty serious. Did you have any idea why they wanted to ask you anything? pretty serious. Did you have any idea why they wanted to ask you anything? And when he meets with investigators, 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. And then they show him something else. It's a sketch of his house. The one police drew when he got the death threat. They tell him they found it when they raided the homes of the two Nordkreuz members who were under investigation.

One of them is a police officer who worked in Heiko's 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. What did the police officers tell you about these guys? What did the Bundeskriminalamt tell you about this network back then? He says the police told him that some members of Nordkreuz were collecting information on political enemies.

That they had identified a camp deep inside the forest near Heiko's hometown. And that prosecutors were now investigating whether those two Nordkreuz members had planned to gather and eliminate people on day X. Why do you think they had a sketch of your house? Heiko says he believes they were coming for him too. After this meeting with investigators, Heiko says he's paying more attention. Because he's realized that this group was more dangerous than he thought. 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 prosecutor's investigation into Nordkreutz 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. 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. To hear more, search for DayX wherever you listen to podcasts and hit subscribe. Gjørens morg. Day X is made by Lindsay Garrison, Claire Tennisgetter, Caitlin Roberts, Larissa Anderson, Michael Benoit, and Katrin Benhold.

Additional reporting by Chris Schutze. Engineered by Dan Powell. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Tuesday after the holiday. Thank you.