2024-07-08 20:03:42
The authorities confiscate several hundred weapons from a weapons collector because he is allegedly no longer reliable – but they make mistakes. Apparently also in the case of rifle grenades.
It is April 14, 2021. For the fourth time, Peter Frank has been visited by the Kiel State Criminal Police Office and the North Friesland District Weapons Authority. The authorities accuse the weapons collector of serious violations of the Weapons Act and want to collect additional weapon parts that Frank is no longer allowed to own.
During the previous three searches and raids, the police made serious mistakes. t-online reported in detail on a good 150 weapons that had disappeared from the hands of the authorities, or on sharp weapons that the State Criminal Police Office had not recognized but had nevertheless passed on to third parties.
Among the weapons were rifle grenades that Frank owned legally – because they were apparently empty, without explosives. Frank assured the officers of this several times and presented evidence to prove that they were collector’s items. But the police called in the bomb disposal team and allegedly detonated the grenades. There is no evidence that this was necessary. But there is also no evidence that the detonation even took place.
Did the police and the weapons authorities want to use this operation and the description of how it is said to have gone to cover up their own mistakes in the investigation? The authorities’ answers leave many questions unanswered.
Peter Frank’s passion for weapons developed early. At the age of 7 he began collecting weapons, one weapon in particular: the Karabiner 98 in all its versions. “These rifles were lying in attics everywhere here in North Friesland after the war,” he says. “These rifles weren’t banned back then, I even took them to school sometimes and showed them to the teachers.” They would then explain the weapon to him and give him tips on how to use it.
Even back then, Frank was primarily interested in the technology of weapons. At some point he owned a collection of more than 900 weapons from different manufacturers, from different years of manufacture and from different places of manufacture. Frank never fired them, or only rarely. According to specialist magazines, his collection was considered the largest legal cultural-historical collection of these weapons in Europe.
But in 2017, a dispute broke out between Frank and the weapons authority and the State Criminal Police Office. He was suddenly accused of violating the weapons law. His weapons were confiscated and some of them destroyed – possibly illegally. He was charged with several violations of the weapons law – the trial has been stalled for some time, the judge was declared biased, and weapons that were picked up by the State Criminal Police Office and the weapons authority have disappeared. t-online reported in detail.
Now it turns out that there are also unanswered questions in the case of two rifle grenades. These rifle grenades can be fired with an attachment on the Karabiner 98. They were used during the Second World War, for example, to breach bunkers. Frank says he bought these grenades at a trade fair. “They had nothing in them, no explosives,” he says. Adults over the age of 18 in Germany are allowed to own such decorative grenades without a special permit.
But the State Criminal Police Office and the Weapons Authority saw things differently in Frank’s case. They suspected that he was dealing with grenades that were not transportable. “That was complete nonsense,” says Frank. He swears under oath that during the search on April 14, 2021, he unscrewed and shook the rifle grenades in front of the officers. To show that the decorative grenades posed no danger.
“I was actually upset,” he recalls. “That’s why I remember this scene so well. I didn’t understand at all what these officers were doing with the deco grenades.” t-online has witness statements from the day of the search that confirm Frank’s version.
Frank later found the grenades screwed back together in front of his front door. “If these objects posed a danger, then the police were very negligent when they placed them in front of a glass front,” said Frank. The pictures show that the grenades were opened. There is a gap in the thread.