Knife Camp in Germany Jim Wagner
The day before I landed at Dusseldorf International Airport to prepare for my two-day Knife Camp there was another school massacre in Germany on Wednesday, September 16. This time an 18-year-old threw two Molotov cocktails (a glass bottle filled with flammable liquid with a burning rag stuffed into the neck) into a classroom and then started hacking eight graders with an ax. Ten children were wounded, two girls seriously injured, but none of the injuries were life threatening. The attack took place at the Carolinum High School in the southern German town of Ansbach. Responding police shot him and then transported him to the hospital where he is in critical condition. He is being held on suspicion of murder.
Just a few months ago in March, three days after my Terrorism Survival course and when I was heading to the European Police Conference 2009 in Nurnberg, was Germany’s worst school shooting in their history. This is where a 17-year-old former student, by the name of Tim Kretschmer, went onto campus in Winnenden and fatally shot 12 people with his father’s sport pistols. The murderer committed suicide when police were tracking him down. The immediate political fall out from that shooting is that many government officials wanted to forbid sport pistols above .22 caliber and to outlaw paintball sports even though the fatally wounded suspect never played paintball.
Of course this time the school carnage was not committed with a gun. He decided to use other tools to injure people. The Molotov cocktail idea was a copy cat crime. Also in March, again in Germany, a young woman through a burning Molotov cocktail into her classroom but it failed to explode. Even though such a device is illegal it did not stop these two people. As I always tell my students, “Weapons are just tools. They can be used for evil or for good. The focus should be stopping a person who is using it for evil. Trying to analyze a person psychologically and prevent him from carrying out a crime before it happens is next to impossible. My job is to teach people the skills they need to survive an attack before it happens or when they find themselves in the middle of it.”
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A few days later I had a full class, 22 students, in my Knife Camp that began on September 19. Twenty-two is the maximum amount of students I teach at any given time. This makes eleven teams partnered up. Any more than that and students would not get the attention from me they need. Out of those students I only had one female this time, which was good for her because she had the opportunity to go up against 21 men, and she did great. Helping me teach was my Director of all German speaking countries, Tobias Leckebusch, and Reality-Based Personal Protection instructor Joachim Roux.
One third of the Knife Camp was made up of German police and military personnel, which greatly motivated the civilian students.
If you’d like to attend the next Knife Camp in Solingen, Germany in November – you can’t. It’s full, and with a waiting list. The next available time will be in 2010 in March. If you are anywhere in Europe you can sign up for it today and reserve your space.
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Last Level 2 Seminar of 2009 in Germany Jim Wagner
My last Level 2 seminar of 2009 began bright and early on Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. on September 21st and ended on Friday, the 25th. The five days included Conflict Conditioning, Scenario Training, Control & Defense, Improvised Weapons, and Handgun Survival. The Boker Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection is certainly living up to its purpose as the European Headquarters for the system with students coming from Germany, Scotland, and the Czech Republic. I understand that in November I have students coming in from Greece and Spain.
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Those who earned their Level 2 instructor certificates were: Jens Worner (a paramedic who must battle violent patients from time to time), Peter Schmidt, Martin Mikolasek of the Czech Republic, Andreas Luttropp, Paul Lavista, Tobias Striese, Andreas Hubner, Samir Doubali who was my partner in a wilderness survival camp last September, Carlos Garcia, and Raymond Kelly of Glasgow, Scotland who plans to teach youth next year. Others are not listed or shown for security reasons.
What makes my Knife Camp and Level 2 seminars even more special was the attendance of several instructors from the Bundeswehr (German Army) of the Military Police (the Schule fur Feldjager und Stabsdienst der Bundeswehr and Truppen fach Lehrer – members of the AZK 9 Ausbildung Ziel Kontrolle). I have been training the Combatives and Tactics instructors of the Military Police for the last four years, ever since a course I taught for the American and German Special Forces in Pfullendorf, who in turn teach many of my techniques and training methods to 3,000 Military Police officers throughout Germany. All of these Military Police instructors have become good friends of mine and we all had dinner together at a fantastic Pizzeria on Wednesday night and talked shop. Even a former Military Police officer and Level 2 instructor, “Dominic,” with the Stadt-Polizei Offenbach came all the way from Frankfurt to have dinner with us, which was a pleasant surprise.
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I had such a great group of guys in my Level 2 courses that I really enjoyed going in to teach everyday. After each German style breakfast each morning I was ready to jump right into the material, and there was lots of it.. Even though I worked these men hard they all refused to show any signs of fatigue. Unfortunately, Ray and I had to leave immediately after the last class and catch a taxi to the Dusseldorf airport. I didn’t have to leave until the next morning, but Ray had to be on a 7 p.m. flight. It gave us a good opportunity to talk about how to grow Reality-Based in Scotland.
Martin Mikolasek is my new Reality-Based Personal Protection Coordinator of the Czech Republic. We will be setting up a Knife Camp seminar in the beautiful city of Prague sometime in 2010. Martin is an excellent martial artist, and has been devoted to the Reality-Based system for the last two years.
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Al Qaeda threatens Germany Jim Wagner
On Thursday, September 24, the day I was teaching my Improvised Weapons course, Al Qaeda sent a communiqué to the German government basically saying, “If you re-elect Chancellor Angela Merkel we will attack Germany.” The communiqué also said that they wanted all German troops to leave Afghanistan or face “a rude awakening” after the polls. Once again Al Qaeda is trying to influence European politics.
When I was at Dusseldorf International Airport Saturday morning (the 26th) I could see that the police had beefed up security. Normally the police in this airport walk around with their standard issued pistols. On this day they were armed with sub machineguns and wearing flak jackets. I was also search more thoroughly than normal when going through the screening process: shoes off, the magnetic wand, bomb swab test, the works. All of Germany had tighter security.
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The German national elections are now over, as of today, Sunday, September 27. Chancellor Angela Merkel has been elected along with the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats. The main opponent, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Social Democrats conceded defeat. Chancellor Merkel has been in power since 2005. Now, only time will tell if Al Qaeda carries out its threat. Many of my students who have taken my Terrorism Survival course are keeping their eyes open and know what to look for. Let’s hope that it is just a bluff.
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