A 31-year-old right-wing extremist has been sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for bombing a Holocaust memorial and a hostel for asylum-seekers last August.
The bomber, Detlef Meyer, confessed to the crimes, saying he wanted “to set a sign against Jews and foreigners, to give them a fright.”
Meyer’s 36-year-old accomplice, Lutz Meining, received two years and nine months for helping in the attacks.
Prosecutors had requested penalties of six years and three years for Meyer and Meining respectively. But no one was wounded in the attacks, hence the slightly reduced sentences.
The crimes, committed at the height of a wave of anti-foreigner and neo-Nazi violence in Germany last summer, attracted a great deal of media attention worldwide.
The Holocaust memorial on Berlin’s Putlitz Bridge commemorates the deportation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps. The bomb caused considerable damage.
At the Berlin sentencing, the court’s chief judge blasted the two men for their “extremely dangerous attacks” and said they severely damaged Germany’s interests, particularly by hurting the country’s image abroad.
After confessing, the two men expressed regret at what they termed “an act of stupidity.”
The fact that the attacks were directed against Jews and foreigners was a critical factor contributing to the stiff sentence.
The judge said the attack “reminded Jews in Germany of old fears in a brutal way.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
