Franz Fuchs (12 December 1949 – 26 February 2000) was an Austrian domestic terrorist who killed four people and injured 15, some seriously, using three improvised explosive devices and 24 mail bombs, which he sent in five waves between 1993 and 1997.

Criminal psychologists characterized Fuchs as a highly intelligent but socially inept loner. He targeted people he considered to be foreigners, or organizations and individuals whom he believed were "friendly to foreigners".

According to a study, Franz Fuchs inspired Pekka Eric-Auvien to kill 8 of his classmates during the Jokela school shooting in Finland in 2007.^[2]

Mail bombs and improvised explosive devices

In December 1993 he started his first wave of mailbombs. Early victims were the priest August Janisch (because of his help for refugees), Silvana Meixner (ORF journalist for minorities), and the Mayor of Vienna, Helmut Zilk, who lost a large part of his left hand in the explosion. Other mailbombs which were discovered and neutralized were targeted at Helmut Schüller (humanitarian organisation Caritas), the Green politicians Madeleine Petrovic and Terezija Stoisits, Wolfgang Gombocz and Minister Johanna Dohnal.^[3][4][5]

While attempting to disarm an improvised explosive device found at a bilingual school in Carinthia, police officer Theo Kelz lost both his hands on 24 August 1994. (Kelz subsequently became the first Austrian to receive a double hand transplant, and made an impressive recovery.) ^[6]

Franz Fuchs claimed responsibility for his attacks in a letter to the foreign minister of Slovenia in September 1994, in the name of the "Salzburger Eidgenossenschaft – Bajuwarische Befreiungsarmee" (Bavarian Liberation Army). In a number of subsequent letters, he tried to give the impression of a larger organisation with different units. However, from the second wave of mailbombs in October 1994 not a single one went off.^[7]

Arrest, trial and death

Graz-Karlau Prison

At this stage Fuchs had become highly paranoid. On 1 October 1997 near his residence in Gralla, he followed two women in a car who he believed were observing him. When police attempted to question him on what they believed was a routine case of stalking, he produced another improvised explosive device which he had kept in his car, and detonated it in his hands in front of the policemen. His suicide attempt failed, but he lost both hands, and also injured a nearby police officer. Fuchs was arrested without giving further resistance and, after a trial which many in Austria felt had fallen short of making all attempts to uncover deep details, was sentenced to life in prison on 10 March 1999. Through his unruly behavior during the trial, Fuchs had repeatedly forced his removal from court proceedings.

On 26 February 2000, Fuchs was found hanged with the cable of his electric razor in his prison cell at Graz-Karlau Prison. The prison physician determined his death to be a suicide.

Unresolved questions

Although the case was officially closed after Fuchs had been sentenced, and although the "Bavarian Liberation Army" was determined to never have existed as a terrorist organization in the meaning of the term, doubts remained whether Fuchs had actually committed his actions without any support or tacit knowledge from sympathizers.

A thorough search of the two rooms in his parents' house where Fuchs had lived revealed more improvised explosive devices but no traces of the equipment which he would have needed to produce and handle the unstable explosives (including mercury fulminate and nitroglycerol) contained in his improvised explosive devices.

Most of Fuchs' "confession letters" exhibited an aptitude at verbal expression for which he was not known. Some had referred to internal affairs in police procedures that were not accessible to the general public.

Even more doubts remain concerning Fuchs' death. How exactly a man without hands (Fuchs consistently refused having his advanced prosthetic arms fitted to him) and under almost constant video surveillance could accomplish the manipulations required to convert an electric cable into a noose sufficiently robust for suicide by hanging was never properly explained.

Media

• In 2007, the criminal case was portrayed in the docudrama Franz Fuchs – Ein Patriot, the role of Franz Fuchs was played by Austrian Karl Markovics.^[10]
• In the computer games Hitman: Codename 47 and Hitman: Contracts, the character Frantz Fuchs appears to be based on Franz. Frantz is an Austrian terrorist, who served in Hitlerjugend as a youngster, and is planning to blow up a hotel at which a U.N. peace summit is being held.

References