German Neo Nazis in Lebanon: What the PLO Training Record Shows
German archival research documents military training for Odfried Hepp under PLO auspices in 1980. A separate reconstruction records Fatah’s support for Karl-Heinz Hoffmann’s neo Nazi contingent in Beirut.
Odfried Hepp, a West German neo Nazi who joined Karl-Heinz Hoffmann’s group in Lebanon in 1980, received military instruction under the Palestine Liberation Organization, according to Germany’s Archivportal-D. Its historical account describes exercises with weapons and explosives. The connection is documented, but the record is more specific than a claim about all Palestinian organisations or all members of Hoffmann’s group.
From a German ban to Beirut
After West Germany banned Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann in January 1980, its leader established an overseas formation in Lebanon. A reconstruction by Sebastian Wehrhahn and Martina Renner, published by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation and drawing on court records, identifies the German far right militant Udo Albrecht as the intermediary for Hoffmann’s Palestinian contacts.
The authors describe an arrangement at Bir Hassan, a Beirut suburb: Fatah provided Hoffmann and approximately 15 followers with accommodation, food, some weapons and identity documents. Hoffmann also sold decommissioned Bundeswehr vehicles to Palestinian recipients. Fatah was the principal faction within the PLO umbrella organisation.
What the training evidence establishes
The Baden-Württemberg State Archives records that Hepp left for Lebanon on July 27, 1980 with Peter Hamberger, Steffen Dupper and Kay-Uwe Bergmann. They went to join Hoffmann’s organisation.
Archivportal-D identifies Hepp’s training as conducted under PLO direction. Political scientist Samuel Salzborn’s study of Stasi files, published by Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education, also records military training and says Palestinian contacts knew Hepp came from an extremist right wing group when he arrived in early August 1980.
The available material does not establish which Palestinian instructors trained each German participant or whether Yasser Arafat or the PLO Executive Committee authorised the arrangement. Palestinian instruction, Fatah’s logistical support and drills directed by Hoffmann are distinct parts of the record.
Violence within Hoffmann’s group
The Bir Hassan account describes construction work, paramilitary exercises and increasingly brutal discipline imposed by the Germans themselves. Bergmann suffered severe torture and is believed to have died following it in February 1981; his body was never recovered.
On June 15, 1981, Hepp, Hamberger and Hans-Peter Fraas left the group and approached the West German embassy in Beirut. According to the State Archives, they gave extensive statements to visiting Federal Criminal Police officers.
Hoffmann’s 1986 convictions included counterfeiting, false imprisonment, dangerous bodily harm and other offences. He was acquitted of involvement in the murders of Jewish community figure Shlomo Lewin and Frida Poeschke, who were killed in Erlangen in December 1980.
The Oktoberfest boundary and later contacts
The Lebanon episode overlaps with the period of the September 26, 1980 Oktoberfest bombing, whose perpetrator, Gundolf Köhler, had earlier contacts with Hoffmann’s group. Germany’s federal prosecutors closed their renewed investigation in July 2020 without sufficient evidence to charge others as accomplices. The findings do not establish Palestinian involvement in that attack.
Hepp later helped form the Hepp-Kexel terrorist group, which attacked US targets in West Germany in 1982. His subsequent work with the Palestine Liberation Front belonged to a separate phase and faction. Salzborn describes attempted contacts with the far left Red Army Faction through intermediaries, not an established operational alliance. The history concerns specific extremist networks, whose contacts crossed ideological boundaries without making them a single organisation.
