Student and offender: Who is the left-wing extremist Lina E.?

student and criminal
Who is the left-wing extremist Lina E.?

By Marc Dimpfel
May 31, 2023 at 6:34 p.m

The verdict against Lina E. is the toughest punishment for left-wing extremist acts in years. Up until her sensational arrest, she lives an inconspicuous life at first glance. Today she celebrates the left scene as an icon.

On November 6, 2020, a blue police helicopter lands in front of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. A young woman with her hands tied gets out, surrounded by officers with balaclavas. A scene that is otherwise known from terrorist suspects. The young woman’s name is Lina E., a student from Leipzig, and the magistrate is waiting for her. The investigating authorities are celebrating their arrest as a breakthrough in the fight against left-wing extremist violence.

For Lina E., two and a half years of custody and more than 100 days of hearings before the Dresden Higher Regional Court followed, finally until today, Wednesday the verdict is five years and three months in prison. Her three co-defendants, with whom the court is convinced she formed a criminal organization, also have to spend several years in prison. The court thus remains under the applications of the federal prosecutor. Nevertheless, these are the toughest penalties against left-wing extremist motivated acts in years.

The 28-year-old originally comes from Kassel. The mother is a social worker, the father is a senior teacher at a vocational school. After graduating from high school, she works in a hotel on Tenerife and travels through Southeast Asia for five months, she says on a trial day in October. Then she moves to Leipzig. The district of Connewitz, where she lives in a shared apartment, is known for trendy shops and a left-wing scene that is always militant. Lina E. is studying a master’s degree in educational sciences in Halle and also wants to become a social worker. According to research by “Zeit”, she lives an inconspicuous life at first glance, most recently works in a sports hall and completes her university courses with good grades. She has no criminal record.

Confrontation with NSU

Her bachelor thesis is entitled: “On dealing with neo-Nazism in youth work – the NSU in the youth club Winzerla”. The NSU terrorists Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt met in a youth club in Jena-Winzerla. In her work, she criticizes the appropriation of youth welfare by the rights. Right-wing terrorists killed one of their victims in an Internet café in Kassel in 2006. A friend of Lina E. tells the “Leipziger Volkszeitung” that the NSU murder in her hometown could have politicized her as a teenager.

In Leipzig she finally meets Johann G., a convicted violent criminal from the left-wing extremist scene. He first becomes her boyfriend, then her fiancé. The federal prosecutor accuses him of seven attacks on right-wing extremists. Johann G. has been in hiding for over two years.

According to the court, Lina E. and her co-defendants also attacked supporters of the right-wing scene between 2018 and 2020. Accordingly, she was there when a group of neo-Nazis who attended a demonstration were ambushed in Wurzen, Saxony. In Eisenach, Thuringia, she was caught in a getaway car after a right-wing extremist pub owner was attacked. In Leipzig, violence hits a sewer worker because he is wearing a hat from a label popular with right-wingers. He suffers serious head injuries. According to the court, she is not a ringleader, but rather a “overview person” who organizes combat training and prepares attacks.

“Free Lina” is the slogan of the scene

In the scene on the left, Lina E. becomes a figurehead. The lettering “Free Lina” is emblazoned on posters at left-wing demonstrations and on house facades in Leipzig and Berlin. Their deeds are celebrated, “Antifa remains manual work,” they say. The defense meanwhile accuses the federal prosecutors of applying different standards to right-wing and left-wing criminals and speaks of a “political process”.

For the protection of the constitution, the judgment is evidence of lowered inhibitions in the left-wing extremist scene. “We don’t see the threshold to terrorism being crossed yet, but if the radicalization spiral continues and the acts become more and more brutal and unrestrained, then the moment draws closer when one also has to speak of left-wing terrorism,” says the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang.

After the verdict, riots are now also feared at rallies. Demonstrations in Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz are planned for the evening, and nationwide calls are made for Saturday. Threats are appearing on the Internet, according to which property damage of one million euros is to be caused for every year of imprisonment in Leipzig. The police are preparing for a large-scale operation.