On January 22, 1979 at 9 p.m., television history was written in Germany. The first episode of the four-part series “Holocaust – The Story of the Weiss Family” celebrates its premiere – but not on the first ARD program. The purchase of the broadcasting rights by Westdeutscher Rundfunk already sparked discussions with other broadcasters. “After much back and forth, the ARD directors decided not to broadcast the four-episode film, which lasted more than seven hours, in the nationwide ARD program, but at the same time in all third programs – also nationwide,” noted a daily newspaper at the time. The series was still a hit. Almost every second adult watched at least one episode between January 22nd and 26th. Discussions about the series were part of the curriculum in many schools.
Above all, it was the way the Holocaust was portrayed that was new: the unimaginable horrors of genocide embedded in a fictional story. Through the series, many understood for the first time the scope of the Nazis’ unprecedented crimes.
This is exactly what right-wing terrorists wanted to prevent in the winter of 1979. On January 18th at 8:15 p.m., ARD broadcast the documentary “Final Solution. Persecution of Jews in Germany 1933 – 1945” in advance of the four-part series. After almost half an hour, the television program went out on hundreds of thousands of screens.
“Yesterday evening at 8:40 p.m., the lines to the Südwestfunk station Koblenz at the foot of the 280 meter high transmission mast for the first television program and the three radio programs were destroyed by an explosive detonation. This means that all Südwestfunk programs via the Koblenz station and the downstream stations in Linz and Bad fell Marienberg and over 100 filler stations,” reported Südwestfunk on the radio the next day. There was also an explosion in Münsterland. At the Longinus Tower in Nottuln, the detonation destroyed the Federal Post’s telecommunications systems, but the television transmission systems were not affected. No one was injured in the attacks.
The investigators quickly suspected a terrorist background because right-wing publications had called for sabotage in the previous days. It said, among other things, that every “decent German” was called upon to prevent the TV series from being broadcast. The Federal Prosecutor General and the Federal Criminal Police Office took over the investigation.
The officials removed the snow from around the badly damaged base of the transmission mast near Koblenz and secured traces in the meltwater: an explosive device weighing ten kilograms had been used, the investigators determined. The metal cladding of the mast base flew 50 meters due to the force of the explosion.
A group calling itself the “International Revolutionary Nationalists” claimed responsibility for the crime by telephone. But who exactly was behind the group and the explosive attacks only became clear years later.
It was not until 1987 that the police arrested the perpetrator, also through information from a Stasi double agent and through the evaluation of traces in a weapons depot that had been dug up: Peter N. from Wiesbaden, then in his mid-30s, studied chemist, long-time functionary of the NPD youth organization JN, right-wing terrorist. He was considered a “bomb brain” in neo-Nazi circles and wanted to use his skills to destroy the broadcasting equipment together with accomplices and thus prevent “Holocaust” from being broadcast.
In 1988, N. received a prison sentence of four and a half years from the Frankfurt am Main Higher Regional Court for, among other things, the explosive attacks and violations of the War Weapons Control Act.
On the first broadcast date of the four-part series “Holocaust – The Story of the Weiss Family” on January 22, 1979, all viewers around the Koblenz station were able to watch in front of the television. Emergency operations were able to be resumed on the evening of the attack – the right-wing terrorists were able to watch this part of the event Do not prevent the coming to terms with Nazi injustice.
After his release from prison, Peter N. became active again for the NPD. He wants to have renounced violence.
Editor’s note: This article was first published on January 10, 2019. To mark the anniversary of the first broadcast of “Holocaust”, we have republished it in a revised form.
