Thread by @Roman_Hoefner

The members of "Atomwaffen Division" hide behind pseudonyms online and cover their faces with masks when taking pictures. Nevertheless, journalists and activists have been able to unmask the extremists time and again. Insights into a year-long SPIEGEL investigation. 🧵 #OSINT

Since it’s founding in 2015, Atomwaffen Division (AWD) has based it’s ideology on a book called Siege, which has first been published in the 80’s in form of newsletters by the fascist James Mason.

The founding members of AWD wanted to meet Mason in person. but that seem to have been a hard undertaking. Mason “seemed to have completely disappeared after his last known interview in 2003”, an AWD member wrote in an article on “ropeculture” in 2017.

“After being frustrated by multiple dead ends in our research, the members of the Atomwaffen Division have finally managed to find Mason”, he continued. To prove they were in contact with their idol, he published pictures of their first get together.

The photos don’t reveal much about where James Mason might live. In one of the pictures, you can see a high building in the background, a few trees on the street and a small staircase, but that’s about it. There are other clues to be found elsewhere on the internet, though.

Another member of AWD called “Rape” published a post about them getting to know Mason. He writes about a second meet up of awd members with their idol and how they drove “travelled over 1000 miles by car to personally meet James Mason” archive.ph/46UyO

“Rape” also published a picture that allegedly shows the second visit at Mason’s home. On one of the first AWD websites, we were able to find the same picture, in which the faces of the members are blurred but recognizable.

Early 2018, Propublica managed to identify several of the key members of AWD. Among them: Rape. According to Propublica, John Cameron Denton from Montgomery, Texas, hid behind that nickname. The journalists also managed to identify the leader of the Texas cell: Sean M. Fernandez

If you compare the picture published by ProPublica to the picture which allededly shows the second meet up with Mason, you can easily make out similarities. Therefore, it might have been Denton and Fernandez who were the awd members who undertook a long drive to get to know Mason

Since ProPublica published the hometown of Denton, we @DerSpiegel got the idea to look for Mason in cities which are about a 1000 Miles drive from Montgomery, Texas – and compare satellite imagery to the photo published of the first meetup with Mason.

Already the first try was a hit: In Denver, you can find a building on google maps that looks like the one which can be seen on the photo of the first meet up with mason.

Other details can be found in that area of Denver as well: There is a street with big trees on -the side – and you can also make out what looks like a patio on one of the buildings.

If you take a look at Google Street View, you can easily make out that the picture which an AWD member took on the day he first met Mason was indeed taken here. But does Mason live in that building?

According to spokeo.com, a James Mason in the appropriate age does indeed live in that building. So SPIEGEL journalists made their way to Denver in hopes of being the first journalists for years to get James Mason on camera.

A few weeks later, we published a report about Mason and AWD: spiegel.de/international/…

In 2020 we managed to identify a German member of “Feuerkrieg Division” in a similar fashion. One of their key members who went by the nickname “Heydrich” revealed a lot about himself in internal chats, which were published by @UnicornRiot: bit.ly/3NWnKCx

Among other things, “Heydrich” said in the chats that he lived close to the Czech border, about an hour drive from the German city Passau – and he posted a picture he took in his hometown in the chats.

On Google Maps, we were able to find a pedestrian crossing with the same street markings in a small Bavarian city called “Cham”.

Unfortunately, Google Street View is not available for the city of Cham. But we were able to verify that “Heydrich” indeed took to photo at that place by the help of pictures from a Google review of a bar close by. bit.ly/3Ebz1tX

With the knowledge of his where abouts we were able to finally identify “Heydrich” as Fabian D. from Bavaria and learned that he just recently got arrested: spiegel.de/panorama/neona…

We were also able to unmask one of the US members of AWD in 2018 by the help of OSINT techniques. Like many other members, “Kristallnacht” went by a lot of nicknames online – he often used a new one on every social network he created a profile on.

One way to check whether it is indeed the same person who is hiding behind different accounts and pseudonyms, you compare the pictures or information given on the accounts. In Kristallnacht’s case, some of them even linked to each other.

One of his countless profiles had a surprise in store: On Google Plus, "Kristallnacht" had apparently forgotten to adjust the privacy settings.

In the contact information, his email address was visible. The so-called "local part" of the email - that is, everything before the @ sign - reads like a combination of abbreviated plain name and month of birth.

Googling this exact string brings up another profile with a full name: "Christian G." From internal AWD chats we had learned that "Kristallnacht" probably comes from Oklahoma. We began to search for a "Christian G." from this very US state. We found him on Facebook.

Christian G’s profile looks unsuspicious at first glance, but once you take a closer look, you can find evidence that he is an AWD member.

On one of his profile pictures, for example, you can make out a tshirt print that is identical to a tshirt that has been sold on one of the awd websites.

But Christian G. made an even bigger mistake: Apparently, G. wrote a direct message to a famous musician on Instagram and his idol did indeed get back to him. Proudly, Christian G. posted a screenshot of that conversation on Facebook.

If you take a close look at that screenshot, you can make out the profile picture Christian G. used on Instagram. It’s a cutout of a profile picture that has been used by an particular awd member as well: Kristallnacht.

We flew to Oklahoma to confront G. with these allegations: spiegel.de/video/spiegel-…

By the help of OSINT techniques, we were also able to identify Chris Marvin C., who is an active duty NCO of the German army and suspected to be an AWD member. He was one of the 50 Nazis who got raided last week (€). spiegel.de/panorama/justi…

Three other german members we were able to identify are "wolfskampf", "dekkit" and "teuton" – more information can be found in our osint report (€): spiegel.de/panorama/justi…

This is all a team effort, of course. Among the journalists reporting on AWD for @derspiegel are, among others, Alexander Epp, @romanlehberger, @MB_Journalist, @schmidtwolf and @diehljoerg

Journalists worldwide have played an important role into shedding light on AWD. Among the most noteworthy reporters that have worked on and published about the group internationally are @Jake_Hanrahan , @awinston and @DdesimoneDaniel

For in depth reports on the german cell of AWD and related groups see also the publications by @LarsWienand, @holger_stark, @AstridGeisler and @Belltower_News.

Not to mention the great number of unnamed activists who have been tracking the group since its founding. People working with @UR_Ninja or @affeu2 in Germany, for example.

Last but not least: We also did an in depth look into this investigation for @reporterforum:

https://twitter.com/Reporterfabrik/status/1513884671918198788