Investigations into breach of the peace
Fraternity villa barricaded with a 20 meter long wooden wall
December 15, 2024 – 7:22 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
A group of people wearing dark clothing barricade the entrance to a fraternity in Hanover. The police have to arrive with heavy equipment.
Unknown people barricaded the entrance to a fraternity's villa in Hanover with a three-meter-high wooden wall and threw paint on the facade. After the action on Saturday, the state security agency responsible for political acts is investigating breach of the peace and coercion.
Officials said the approximately 20-meter-long wooden wall had been decorated with political lettering by the people, some of whom were masked and dressed in black. In photos published in the “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung” (HAZ), the slogan “Shut down Nazi centers” can be seen on the fence. No one was injured in the action.
The villa is the headquarters of the Hanover Ghibellinia-Leipzig fraternity, a vibrant student association that claims to have been active since 1868. It maintains the tradition of the so-called Mensur, also fencing matches, in which a so-called blow to the face can be a typical injury.
“To call our house a 'Nazi center' is a slander that has no basis whatsoever,” said the chairman of the fraternity, Thomas Gillmann, when asked by the German Press Agency. “Our fraternity stands in an absolutely democratic tradition, for freedom of expression and political diversity. We categorically reject any kind of radicalism.”
According to the definition of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, fraternities are national-conservative student associations, almost all of which only accept men. The magazine “Report Mainz” reported in the spring that there were connections to numerous AfD MPs. According to a report in the members' magazine of the federal association “Burschenschaftliche Blatter”, in November 2023, an AfD member of parliament from Rhineland-Palatinate gave a lecture in the Ghibellinia-Leipzig house in Hanover with the title “Question of Fate of Immigration – Why Remigration is Necessary and Feasible”.
Residents alerted the emergency services on Saturday around 1:30 p.m. and spoke of a group of dark-clad troublemakers in the double-digit number. As a police spokeswoman said, smoke pots were also ignited, which is why administrative offense proceedings were initiated for violating the Explosives Act. “Intensive searches were initiated immediately,” said the spokeswoman. Several groups are checked.
According to police, there were people in the fraternity house while the wooden fence was being erected. “We would like to thank the police forces for quickly eliminating the threat,” said the chairman of the Hanover Ghibellinia-Leipzig fraternity. There have already been attacks on fraternity houses in various university towns. “Unfortunately, our house is regularly the target of vandalism, paint attacks and attempted break-ins,” said Gillmann.
“Especially in Göttingen, but also in other university towns in Lower Saxony, there are repeated attacks on fraternity students and their institutions, and the trend is increasing,” says the Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution report on the subject for 2023. They are the focus of the left-wing extremist scene.
According to the police spokeswoman, the wooden wall was firmly attached, so police officers from the Hanover Central Police Department had to move out and use equipment to demolish the barricade. The investigators are looking for further witnesses.
