“Actually, I wanted to kill myself,” says Paul. The 15-year-old was badly bullied at school. He saw no way out. But then he thought he couldn’t just let all those who bullied him go. “OK. Then I just kill these people.”
Luckily, this massacre never happened. The chat forum where Paul shared his murder fantasies with like-minded people was reported. The police arrested the alleged gunman and delivered him to a psychiatric ward. Six years later, Paul is now sitting in front of Luca Zug and Alexander Spöri’s camera.
The German-Iranian, who was 18 at the time of the crime, shot nine people and then himself on July 22, 2016 near the Munich Olympia shopping center. Paul had previously been in contact with the killer via relevant Internet forums. “I met Sonboly,” explains Paul, “because he was lonely and misunderstood.” Both were on the same wavelength. They were mentally disturbed.
The Munich assassin blamed a racist group for the injustice he suffered. His murders, which at first seemed like an apolitical rampage, were subsequently classified as politically motivated hate crimes.
In their film, Zug and Spöri explore this elusive mixture of manifest mental disorders and political radicalization in borderline chat forums, which also include the gaming scene. To do this, the two reporters go undercover into a scene in which massacres like that of David Sonboly are listed in a kind of hit parade according to perfidious quality standards.
With the help of an algorithm, the function of which is graphically illustrated, the film demonstrates other potential threats that Paul and his former internet friend David Sonboly had contact with. A global network of young pupils, trainees and students, all between the ages of twelve and 26, becomes visible.
Many of them sympathize with right-wing extremist groups such as the “Feuerkrieg Division” or the “Nuclear Weapons Division”. The film makes it clear that contacts with these right-wing terrorist networks are ambivalent. “I would,” explains Paul, “not describe my fifteen-year-old self and my current self as right-wing”. He emphasizes that he has “nothing against Jews or foreigners”.
However – and that is the problem – he has repeatedly “shared things that related to Jewish jokes” on the Internet. It is no coincidence that one of the threats still active on the Internet today adorns himself with the name “Ivan, the Jew Hunter”. The film suggests that this right-wing attitude takes hold of mentally unstable young men like a parasite. Paul explains that he experienced the fascination with gunmen as a way out of loneliness. Contact with the likes of David Sonboly is considered prestige on certain Internet forums. In this digital world, Paul experienced the appreciation that he missed in real life.
In this way he became a ticking time bomb: and not just in the rhetorical sense. Paul explains how he studied the layout of his school in order to carry out his planned massacre as effectively as possible. Bomb attacks are insidious, but the strategy appealed to him.
The documentary “Liken.Hassen.Köten” is worth seeing. The two young directors present themselves in front of the camera a little too often. That seems pretentious. In the strongest moments, however, her film gives an idea of how young men running amok tick.
