Tanks are rolling through Europe and war has dominated the headlines for weeks. But we have not woken up in a new world, as the press and politicians would have us believe since the war in Ukraine. The current war is the direct result of a militarised world. It is the same dirty racist and murderous system that we attacked on New Year’s Eve. It is the same capitalist system that divides people into groups and rules over them. The very system in which some get and stay rich with arms exports. It is the same NATO that has been waging war for years and that acts in the same militaristic logic as the authoritarian pig Putin. No, the only “new” thing about the situation is that the warlike misery has moved closer to Europe.
At the turn of the year, we set fire to an OHB company building in Bremen. [1] The fire unfolded in an exemplary manner and destroyed an entire building. According to OHB, the jobs of 330 employees were rendered unusable for the time being. The damage, worth millions, still delights us every day. What followed in January and February was the purest propaganda show by cops and politicians.
We learned from the media that a security guard was allegedly in an anteroom of the attacked building. According to our observations, no one was in the completely darkened building at the time of the attack. We did not want to deliberately put anyone in danger. The attack was of course not aimed at this presumably precariously employed person who has to work in a multi-million dollar corporation on New Year’s Eve. We wanted to damage the arms company OHB and sabotage its war-mongering work.
That the attack was right is shown not only by the reaction of the cops and the press. Wow, what a wave! Immediately the day after, the Senator for the Economy, Labour and Europe from the party Die Linke [The Left] has her picture taken at the scene, backs OHB and denies that OHB is an arms company that works with Frontex. Politics and the arms industry in common interest for Bremen as a business location. A disgusting melange!
As recently as 2014, politicians from the Left Party itself sat on the podium of an information event on the militarisation of Europe’s external borders and criticised the fact that the arms company OHB cooperates with the border protection agency Frontex and builds spy satellites for them. Once again, this behaviour shows us that power corrupts and no party can be trusted. Change can only come from below.
Less than two months after our attack, OHB announces the construction of a new satellite system for optical surveillance for the BND [Federal Intelligence Service] and is already eager for the 100 billion euros to be put into new armament projects. It is clear that the attack had targeted exactly the right ones.
In hopeless propaganda, the senator of the interior and the bigwig from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution stress at every opportunity that such militant attacks are “a precursor to terror” and that they “feel reminded of the 1970s”. These comparisons aim to demonize autonomous militancy and legitimise the use of strong resources to crack down on militant and emancipatory structures. We too sometimes feel reminded of the 70s when we look at security agencies riddled with Nazis or the normality of right-wing arms caches found outside the agencies. In our estimation, an armed struggle against this is not on the horizon at the moment. Sabotage and militant attacks remain our means of choice.
Another fairy tale of the investigating cops is the high professionalism of militant actions in Bremen. It serves as an excuse for the lack of investigative success and is meant to create a rift between emancipatory movements and militant actions. It is also meant to prevent the imitation of such attacks. If we look back at the attack on OHB, we have to admit that it didn’t take too much: a hammer and plenty of petrol to spoil New Year’s Day for the arms company and the Senator for the Economy!
We call for standing up against warmongers, attacking the arms industry and adopting a vital anti-militarist stance.
Against the war! No peace with the ruling classes! For social revolution!
Autonomous Anti-Militarists
[1] An English-language translation of the claim of responsibility for this attack can be found here: https://actforfree.noblogs.org/post/2022/01/12/bremen-germany-the-enemies-of-freedom-are-ours-offices-of-the-arms-company-ohb-system-ag-in-flames/
Note: The photo accompanying this text is taken from German corporate media. It shows the aftermath of the attack against OHB.
Machine-assisted translation of the following German-language post from the Deutschland Indymedia website: https://de.indymedia.org/node/180779