The measure on Sunday evening in the Friedrichshain district is connected to the search for Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, a spokeswoman for the leading Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office told dpa. The “Bild” newspaper had previously reported. The police had previously discovered a trailer that apparently served as Garweg’s hiding place.
Garweg, who has been wanted for over 30 years, “most likely” lived in a caravan on a site in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain, according to an LKA spokesman. However, Garweg was no longer found during a large-scale operation on the site; like the former RAF member Staub, he is still being sought.
Caravan was Garweg’s accommodation
The Berlin police, officers from the LKA and the Federal Criminal Police Office moved into the area on Sunday morning. According to the Berlin police, the property is a wasteland primarily used by the alternative scene, where there are barracks, mobile homes, caravans and buildings. Garweg is also said to have stayed there. During the search of the area, “burkhard Garweg’s suspected accommodation could most likely be identified,” said the LKA spokesman.
The caravan was confiscated and is now being transported away for further investigations. The spokesman did not provide any information about how long Garweg was on the site – but it was a “more recent period”. During the large-scale operation, the police took ten people into custody, but this was only to establish their identity, as the investigators announced after the end of the operation.
The LKA spokesman said that there were no shots fired during the operation – rather there were “sounds of gunfire as part of the tactical opening of doors”. The Berlin S-Bahn stopped operating on four lines during the operation in the area of the property.
Garweg and Staub are said to have committed armed robberies together with the suspected RAF terrorist Daniela Klette, who was arrested last Monday, in order to finance their underground life of over 30 years. The Verden public prosecutor’s office is therefore investigating, among other things, attempted murder.
The LKA has recently significantly intensified the search for the wanted former RAF members Garweg and Staub in and around Berlin. The background is the arrest of the suspected RAF terrorist Klette in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The investigators suspect that the two wanted men could also be in Berlin. The police published new mugshots of Garweg, which are said to have been taken between 2021 and 2024.
Klette was arrested in her apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg and was taken into custody after being identified by fingerprints. The now 65-year-old woman is said to have lived unrecognized in Berlin for years.
Burdock, Staub and Garweg are attributed to the third generation of the left-wing extremist RAF, which no longer became conspicuous after declaring itself to disband in 1998. The murders committed within this third generation remain unsolved. The investigations against the trio, which have been ongoing for several years by the public prosecutor’s office in Verden, Lower Saxony, only relate to allegations of a series of attacks in which attempted murder is said to have occurred.
The former German Interior Minister Gerhart Baum from the FDP complained to the editorial network Germany that the actions of the third generation have gone unpunished. “The murders of the third generation of the RAF have not been solved. The security authorities have not made any progress,” said Baum. “It’s an open wound and a terrible vacuum. And it’s a burden for the relatives.” Because the perpetrators would be walking around freely.
Those murdered included the then CEO of Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen, and trustee boss Detlev Karsten Rohwedder. Baum said Klette’s arrest opens up the situation again. With the weapons found on her, there is improved evidence.
