"Stadium Bomb"

On 30 September 1996, an anonymous bomb threat was phoned in to the police: an explosive device had allegedly been placed at the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld on Stadtrodaer Straße 1. The football match between FC Carl Zeiss and Eintracht Frankfurt (2. Bundesliga), which was being broadcast live on television, had begun 22 minutes earlier. The search for the object, launched immediately, was unsuccessful. The police nevertheless decided not to call off the match. Only days later, on 6 October 1996, a red-painted wooden box was discovered hidden in a high-jump mat beneath the away supporters’ block E, marked with a black swastika on a round white background and the inscription “Bombe” (“bomb”). It contained a 20-liter canister filled with granite and a piece of pipe. The Gera public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation, in the course of which the circle of suspects was expanded to include Böhnhardt, Mundlos and Zschäpe, as well as Andre K. and Ralf W.

(Text and image: Frank Döbert)

External sources

Schäfer-Gutachten im Auftrag des Freistaates Thüringen, 2012, S. 51.