What Really Happened to Frank Magnitz in Bremen?

Police in Bremen have now released excerpts from CCTV footage of the vicious attack on Frank Magnitz, the local chairman of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany), which occurred on Monday night in Bremen.

Instead of the standalone CCTV footage I’ve embedded Vlad’s composite video, which begins with an MSM hit piece against the AfD. This “news” report aired on Radio Bremen, which is the local franchise of ARD, the German state broadcaster. As you can see, all the reporters and “experts” are unanimous in their negative appraisal of the AfD, and are determined to downplay what happened in Bremen on Monday night.

Listen to what they have to say, and then watch the CCTV footage. An important portion of the sequence of events is missing: we don’t see what the first man does to Mr. Magnitz before the figures appear at the bottom of the camera’s field of view. After that two men knock the victim to the ground.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

The following report by Egri Nök was published earlier today at Vlad Tepes in a slightly different form.

Visit Vlad’s place to see stills captured from the CCTV footage.

Police Release CCTV Footage of Brutal Attack On AfD Politician

by Egri Nök

Original translation of a police press release:

Place: Bremen
Date: January 11, 2019

The Public Prosecutor and police have released a video for the purpose of a public search concerning the investigations into the suspicion of inflicting dangerous bodily harm upon the MP Frank Magnitz, Bremen.

A video of the attack is published at www.polizei.bremen.de.

The video shows (partially in slow motion) the raw data of the relevant sequences, recorded by two different cameras in the Sankt-Pauli-Passage at the Theater at Goetheplatz.

The police and the Public Prosecutor want to know: Who can give clues leading to the perpetrators? The criminal police can be reached on the 24 hour hotline 0421 362 3888.

The Bremen public prosecutor offers a reward of €3,000 for clues that lead to the arrest and the conviction of the perpetrators.

Bremen Police are still providing the opportunity to upload pictures and videos on their portal. You can reach the portal under the following link: hb.hinweisportal.de

For inquiries please contact:
Pressestelle Polizei Bremen

Video transcript:

00:02   Buten un binnen
00:10   Welcome to our show. The attack on Bremen’s AfD chairman continues to make waves.
00:16   Today we want to report only what really happened and what is actually known.
00:22   The attack came from behind — New findings.
00:26   Research for space — Tomato production a different way.
00:30   Werder Bremen Soccer Team in South African Township.
00:35   The attack on Bremen’s AfD Chairman Frank Magnitz has two sides.
00:40   One side is real. Magnitz was attacked from behind
00:43   in a district of Bremen. His injuries were serious.
00:46   The other side is the fictional one, with allegations about the culprits.
00:49   The creation of legends about the series of events,
00:52   made up weapons and so on. We don’t want to be a part of that.
00:56   Hauke Hirsinger presents in his report what is actually known.
01:00   Frank Magnitz discharged himself from the hospital today. He doesn’t have any memory of the attack.
01:08   He only knows what the construction worker who called the ambulance said.
01:12   I was completely confused, and asked him
01:16   what happened. He told me three people ran after me.
01:22   Because I was bleeding badly and blood was running down
01:28   everywhere, he then mentioned the wooden plank as a factor or some other object.
01:32   He wasn’t quite sure, but this is where I got
01:36   the information about the wooden plank. —That was enough for the AfD. On their
01:40   Facebook page the attack is described as follows:
01:45   “They knocked him out with a wooden plank and continued to
01:49   kick him in the head after he was unconscious on the ground.”
01:52   The national chairman of the AfD already announced his verdict yesterday, even before
01:55   the investigation by the state attorney had begun. —It is clearly an attempt
02:00   to murder Mr. Magnitz. The result of exclusion and incitement against the AfD.
02:06   The state prosecutor in Bremen never said anything
02:11   about attempted murder. Even the video recordings from the scene
02:16   don’t confirm the initial suspicion of attempted murder.
02:20   These video cameras documented the entire chain of events during
02:23   the attack. —The video shows two of the three culprits walking parallel
02:29   near the victim, and the third culprit appears to be
02:35   jumping into the victim’s back with elbows in front.
02:42   Following that, the victim falls and then the culprits run off.
02:49   For that reason, the state attorney’s office is sure
02:53   it wasn’t an attempted murder, as the AfD is claiming.
02:57   After examining the video material, that assertion cannot be upheld
03:01   in this circumstance. This would only be the case if
03:04   the video material actually showed the victim on the ground
03:08   being kicked and stomped on, and the use of an object to strike
03:13   the victim in a vicious manner. That’s not what was documented
03:17   in the video material. According to the criminal police
03:21   and Bremen’s state attorney there was no wooden plank involved and no kicks to the head.
03:27   Frank Magnitz and the AfD are sticking to their story anyway.
03:31   I assume that we will not be changing it out of necessity, because
03:36   it is the version that I experienced. It is also the version
03:39   that I shared, and this is what our press release is based on.
03:42   According to the statement made by the criminal police today,
03:46   I simply fell over. Unfortunately, that doesn’t explain
03:49   the multiple injuries I suffered. I think what actually happened has to be a bit more than that.
03:54   The police have no further evidence on that.
03:58   Starting today anyone with photographs or videos of the attack
04:01   on Magnitz may submit them to the police tip portal page.
04:07   Much of the information coming from the AfD about the attack
04:11   shortly after the incident has been proven to be false.
04:15   That doesn’t change the fact that once these extended theories and speculations
04:19   are released they have their effect.
04:22   That there is no truth to them doesn’t seem to matter to anyone.
04:26   A brutal attack, like that on the AfD politician,
04:29   is being exploited. Torben Ostermann reveals how.
04:33   It has been two days since the attack on Frank Magnitz,
04:37   but the case still looms large in the media. German newspapers, German blogs and even
04:42   the international press have reported on the case.
04:46   One thing is clear: the AfD has managed once again
04:49   to sell their twisted version of the story as truth.
04:53   I think it is problematic That this picture of him,
04:56   which was brutally shown, has gone viral. That in my opinion is excessive.
05:01   It contributes to fanning the flames
05:07   and further heating things up, rather than waiting to see
05:11   what actually happened in three or four days, maybe a week,
05:14   to reach a verdict about this case. —Now the evidence from the state attorney’s office is
05:18   being reported on by serious media outlets, given details
05:22   of what is slowly being revealed. The AfD had already determined yesterday that
05:26   the culprit’s motive was murder, and called it attempted murder.
05:30   This was disproved by the state attorney’s office. Nevertheless,
05:35   countless media outlets, especially on the right, continue to report
05:39   that version. Media scholars see the system behind this.
05:43   If we observe the online community and look at various platforms
05:47   where this single narrative, and this interpretation pattern, is further spun,
05:56   then we can see that the facts and the interpretation,
06:01   although plausible, just don’t have an adequate context.
06:06   A further interpretation from the AfD is that Magnitz was attacked
06:10   using a hard object. This claim was also refuted by
06:15   the state attorney’s office as being false, but it still can be read many places.
06:19   Thinking that we can dispense certain worldviews
06:22   with facts is something we’ll have to forget about. —Media outlets like Twitter and Facebook,
06:27   where false claims persist, are to blame.
06:32   Social media do change the way we discuss politics,
06:36   and have shaped our politics, and will continue to shape them
06:41   drastically. —It is a fact that many of the false claims by the AfD
06:45   have been refuted, but that didn’t make them disappear.
06:49   It helps the AfD present itself as the victim.
06:52   Investigatory findings that show another picture undoubtedly interfere with that.
 

10 thoughts on “What Really Happened to Frank Magnitz in Bremen?

  1. I wish, the MDR (ARD‘s branch in Eastern Germany) had made the same careful analysis of the „Hase, du bleibst hier“ video from the Antifa Zeckenbiss Twitter channel, that was used to claim that right-wing mobs were chasing foreigners in downtown Chemnitz last summer.

  2. reward of €3,000

    That’s it.??

    Don’t immigrant families get this amount each month from welfare benefits?

    I imagine most people will think it is not worth the risk.

  3. We are obviously dealing here with particularly nasty attempt of a suicide by Mr. Magnitz. An educated guess is that he repeatedly banged his head against the concrete surface in order to achieve life threatening injuries that would eventually killed him. And just by sheer bad luck passer by noticed what’s Mr. Magnitz is doing to himself and called ambulance. Of course this whole thing happened because Mr. Magnitz wanted to place some guilt on his political enemies who just week before didn’t caused explosion in one of AFD’s offices. That was just some mishandling of explosive devices. Similar suicide was attempted couple of weeks earlier when man attempted to kill himself by driving his car into a crowded bus stop. He didn’t succeed either. You have to give it to those Germans, they are certainly innovative in ways to end themselves, although clearly unsuccessful.

  4. The glaring question for me is, if it wasn’t an attempted murder, what was it? The media point out there was no assault committed when he was actually on the ground, but how did he get the injuries to his head, and why did the two men assault him on film when he was standing?

    I can empathize with the media correcting details that the afD reported incorrectly, but it is amazing to me the police and the media would discount the charge of attempted murder before they even have the suspects in custody and investigate their circumstances. Actually, at this stage of the investigation, unless there is some charge of police indifference or neglect of duty, nobody at all should be making statements. I mean, there is nothing except speculation, and in an individual case, speculation is uninformative and uninteresting.

    If I were the AfD, I would be homing in on exactly why, at this early stage of the investigation, the police are already discounting motive.

  5. The video is clear evidence of a vicious assault on Magnitz, a group of three with one attacker clearly striking Magnitz on the head with some force. I would think with a small club or even a heavy spanner. Was it attempted murder? who knows intent until the culprits are caught, but it was targeted, deliberate and not for purpose of robbery.

    I was amazed at the tone of the German TV report, their outrage was not at a violent attack on a elected official, but that the details of the attack, which the victim can’t remember, might be incorrect. No interest in exploring who might do this.

  6. Unfortunately, this case was poorly handled by the media pros of the AfD, if ever they do have that, which I doubt. How can Mr. Magnitz release himself from hospital two days after a supposedly “lethal” attack and then pose to TV cameras with a smile on his face? The party should have locked him in for some weeks with dramatized health reports, true or not.
    The result of it in public opinion will be : oh, come on, can’t have been a very vicious attack.

  7. Interesting how the reporter says they will only report on what they know for sure then proceed to trash the AfD’s version of the event. This is CNN/MSNBC style reporting.

  8. So, people are to report their tips to the ‘Police Tip Portal Page’..

    Would this be the same page people must use to report moslem rapists?

    I wonder if the police integrate this page to the database of ‘right-wing’ citizens?

    This would be another example of that admirable German organisation and effeciency since it would save the police time by having the names of the moslem hating and AfD loving ‘tipsters’ added automatically to the database.

  9. I stopped the video roughly 4:30 minutes in, because that was enough lies and propaganda for one day.
    1) when someone tries as hard as the newslady to establish she’s saying the truth right at the beginning – such a person is almost always lying
    2) there are as good as 2-3 cameras on every corner and the investigators work with the one footage that doesn’t show anything?
    3) since when do you get a massive, bleeding skull-indantation from just falling to the ground?
    4) the general dismissive tone towards the AfD
    5) “after two days the media are still full of it” – compared to every minor “racist” attack towards migrants making headlines for weeks on end
    No thank you. I’d rather stick to my own experience, a “myth”, as the newslady called it, that this kind of injury doesn’t happen from simply falling on the pavement.

Comments are closed.