After the attack with an unknown liquid on a resident in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, the state security took over the investigation. There is a suspicion of a politically motivated crime and dangerous bodily harm, said a police spokesman in Rostock on Monday.
The background is that about four and a half hours before the attack, a picture of the victim was published on the Twitter account of the anti-fascist group Alerta Berlin. There it had been claimed that this man had given a Hitler salute during a demonstration in Lichtenhagen on Saturday. However, this cannot be seen exactly on the eight-second video sequence.
The 25-year-old man was splashed with a previously unknown liquid during the attack on Saturday evening, which caused severe burning and reddening of the skin. According to the police, hooded perpetrators had knocked on the victim’s apartment window on the ground floor of the “sunflower house”.
When the resident opened the window, he was sprayed on his face and bare chest with the liquid, which is said to have smelled of chili or tabasco sauce. The perpetrators fled, the man came to a clinic, which he was able to leave again on Sunday.
Acid was initially not to speak, also because the skin of the victim showed no chemical burns. The liquid caused him a strong burning sensation, police said. The man’s skin was very red in the affected areas.
Whether the motive for the crime is related to an incident on the sidelines of the demonstration against racism in memory of the riots 30 years ago is currently being checked, the police said on Sunday.
The left-wing group “Alerta Berlin” wrote on Twitter at around 6:15 p.m. on Saturday that a man had shown a Hitler salute from an apartment in the “Sonnenblumenhaus”.
According to the police, the attacked man was a 25-year-old German. A local search for the perpetrators was unsuccessful. The criminal police are investigating on suspicion of dangerous bodily harm.
“Alterta Berlin” had posted a photo and a video on Twitter alongside the claim that a man had shown a Nazi salute. Both show a man looking out of a window in the “sunflower house”.
A police spokesman confirmed on Sunday when asked by epd that the man seen was the later attack victim and that the apartment was the crime scene. The spokesman pointed out that neither the photo nor the video showed a Hitler salute.
The police are now not only determining whether there is a connection between the recordings and the crime, but also whether someone actually gave the Hitler salute during the commemoration event.
In the Lichtenhagen district of Rostock, several thousand people peacefully commemorated the racially motivated riots 30 years ago on Saturday. According to the police, around 3,600 people had gathered in Lichtenhagen around 2 p.m.
Another incident had occurred. A 13-year-old had allegedly shown the Hitler salute in front of the camera. According to the police, the young person rode into a recording on Thursday morning in the Lichtenhagen district on a bicycle behind a reporter and raised “his right arm”. The journalists immediately reported this to the police, who were able to pick up the 13-year-old nearby. Rostock’s police chief Anja Hamann had spoken of a “shameful incident” whose background was being determined.
