Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

258 • HOFFMANN MILITARY SPORTS GROUPHOFFMANN MILITARY SPORTS GROUP. The WehrsportsgruppeHoffmann was a nonstate West German neo-Nazi group that engagedin paramilitary training and terrorist activities for the revolutionaryaim of overthrowing the Federal Republic of Germany and restoringa right-wing nationalist authoritarian regime. The group was foundedby Karl-Heinz Hoffmann (1937– ) in the late 1970s. Since West Germanlaw forbids neo-Nazi parties or organizations from operatingopenly, the group represented itself as a club for engaging in militarywar games. The Sports Group stressed paramilitary training, racistideology, anti-Communism, and military romanticism.The Sports Group was linked to terrorism proper first, through theactivities of its own members within Germany, and second, through itsties to Palestinian terrorist groups. Hoffmann created a student branchof his organization called the University Circle of Tübingen Students.This group used to confront and beat up leftist students, often breakingup demonstrations against the apartheid policies of South Africa.The group also baited and attacked feminists and homosexuals.In 1976 one Sports Group member tried to bomb the AmericanForces Network station in Munich. On 19 December 1980 a SportsGroup member, Uwe Behrendt, murdered a Jewish publisher in Erlangen,Shlomo Levin, as well as Levin’s female friend, and fled to theMiddle East where he later committed suicide in 1982. While authoritiescould not prove that Hoffmann ordered Behrendt to commit thismurder, this incident moved the West German Federal Office for Defenseof the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) to banofficially the Sports Group as a neo-Nazi group on 30 January 1980.The most notorious incident associated with the Sports Group wasthe 26 September 1980 bombing of the Munich Oktoberfest, whichkilled at least 12 people and injured more than 217 others, includingseven U.S. citizens. While it now appears that the detonation of thisbomb was an accident, perhaps because the timing mechanism malfunctioned,the bomb itself was produced by the Hoffmann group, andthe bearer of the bomb, one Gondolf Köhler, was a Sports Group member.Hoffmann was jailed on 27 September 1980 but was released thenext day for lack of evidence that he was involved in the bombing.Hoffmann was also seeking to create ties between the Sports Groupand Palestinian groups as an opportunity to provide training and operationalexperience to his cadres. In 1979 Hoffmann took 15 followersto Lebanon for training, and in July 1980 he visited Damascus to form