On May 31st, Lina Engel, the leader of the violent far-left extremist Antifa group known as the Hammerbande or ‘Hammer Gang’ was found guilty by the Dresden Higher Regional Court alongside three other members of the gang for violent assaults on real or alleged neo-Nazis and sentenced to five years and three months in prison.
However, the Federal Public Prosecutor General of Germany based in Karlsruhe has now appealed the sentence, demanding that Engel face at least eight years in prison for her activities, according to a report from the German tabloid Bild.
The prosecutor has also demanded that her co-conspirators, who were handed down sentences of between two years and five months to three years and three months, also face harsher prison sentences of up to three years and nine months in prison.
Engel, who was kept in pre-trial detention for over two and a half years, has professed her innocence and demanded an acquittal in the case and has also appealed the verdict along with the other members of the violent terror group, who have been released and are currently at large.
Violence and threats of violence surrounded the trial, and ahead of the verdict, Antifa extremists threatened to cause a million euros worth of property damage for every year of imprisonment received by members of the Hammer Gang. Both the judge and chief prosecutor of the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office were given police protection due to the risk of violence against them.
Shortly after the verdict, at least 1,500 Antifa militants and other far-left extremists took to the streets of Leipzig to riot and attack police, injuring at least 50 officers, with three so badly injured they were declared unfit for service.
The riots led to a statement from German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser of the Social Democrats who denounced the rioting saying,
There is no justification for the senseless violence of left-wing extremists and rioters. Anyone who throws stones, bottles and incendiary devices at police officers must be held accountable for them consistently.
“The security authorities of the federal and state governments will continue to keep a close eye on the violent left-wing extremist scene in the coming days and weeks and intervene consistently when criminal and violent acts occur,” she added.
The statement from Faeser is at odds with reports that she in 2021, prior to becoming interior minister, published at least one article for an Antifa magazine that was accused of having ties to extremism by the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
‘Hammer Gang’ history
The ‘Hammer Gang’ led by Engel is believed to have carried out at least six separate hammer attacks on alleged right-wing targets between 2018 and 2020 in Leipzig, Wurzen, and Eisenach, often leaving victims for dead.
The group has been extensively researched by the right-wing German NGO Ein Prozent (One Percent), which claims that Engel led the gang along with her partner and alleged fiancé Johann Guntermann, and the pair directed and trained violent far-left extremists and have been doing so since around 2015.
Much of the inner details regarding the group have come from Johannes Domhöver, a former member of the ‘Hammer Gang’ who later became an informant for the German authorities and has been a key witness in the trial against Engel and her alleged terror group.
According to Domhöver, the group had two main strategies, so-called “projects,” which targeted alleged right-wing individuals in their everyday lives, and “exits,” which were attacks on those on the outskirts of right-wing demonstrations and protests, often in train stations and other areas.
Once they acquired their target, the group would unleash violence on their victims with hammers, often aiming for their heads, shins, knees, and ankles to cause what was described as “massive” and “lasting” injuries.
Each extremist had their own role during the attacks, with one member approaching the person to make first contact with the victim, such as asking them for the time, while others would then pounce on the target and attack. Each attack was meant to last no more than 30 seconds in order for the attackers to be able to make a clean escape and reduce risk to themselves. The group also carried pepper spray in case bystanders tried to get involved.
Lovers Engel and Guntermann were the ones who allegedly planned the various “projects” using the mobile app “Jabber” and would also use fake social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook to find more information about their targets.
Domhöver also claimed that the group was highly aware of security issues and only held important meetings in closed rooms without telephones. Similar tactics have been reported among Antifa cells in the United States, in Portland, Oregon.
The ‘Hammer Gang’ members were also concerned with making sure they left no evidence, such as DNA, at crime scenes following attacks, with members wearing gloves and transporting their weapons in plastic bags, cleaning them with chlorine after each “project.”
Domhöver also described a national network of violent far-left extremists across Germany, saying that about 25 people took part in a “training” at an old railway facility in Leipzig in either 2017 or 2018, noting that Antifa militants from Berlin had played a leading role in the training.
Subsequent “training” exercises saw Antifa extremists from Leipzig, Berlin, Frankfurt, Bremen, Rostock, Magdeburg, and elsewhere participate.
Engel and the ‘Hammer Gang’ have been known in Germany for well over a year but the group became far more prominent in February of this year when several hammer attacks were carried out on random people in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, many of whom had no connections to right-wing activism or politics at all.
One of the victims, a man named Zoltán T., described the incident in which he was stalked by a group of people on a bus and later attacked outside a local post office. Footage of the attack was broadcast by Hungarian media, showing a group of masked individuals attacking the Hungarian with hammers.
The description of the attack exactly matched the testimony of Johannes Domhöver regarding the methodology of attacks by the Hammer Gang and after Hungarian police announced that German nationals had been arrested in connection to the attacks, some began making connections.
The arrest of a 28-year-old man named Tobias E. fuelled speculation that the man arrested is Tobias Edelhoff, a well-known associate of Lina Engel from Berlin who was connected to an incident in Eisenach in 2019 in which a pub was attacked, allegedly by the Hammer Gang.
The “Tobias E.” arrested by Hungarian police was also revealed to be the same age as Edelhoff and his identity was later confirmed by the Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet. The Budapest attacks revealed that, despite Engel being in custody at the time of the Budapest attacks, the ‘Hammer Gang’ was able to continue to carry out violent acts of terror, not only in Germany but also abroad.
