1992: Formation The band was founded in
Sondershausen by Hendrik Möbus (also known as Randall Flagg, Jarl Flagg Nidhögg and JFN) and Sebastian Schauseil (Dark Mark Doom) in 1992, with a third member, Damien Thorn, joining at a later stage who was later replaced by Andreas Kirchner (C.H. Surt).
1993: Murder of Sandro Beyer The band achieved infamy because its original members (not in the band since 1999) murdered Sandro Beyer, a 15-year-old boy, in 1993. The canonical motive is that Beyer was privy to an illicit relationship of Schauseil's with a married woman (who was Beyer's teacher in an evangelical Christian church) and had been spreading rumours about this and other activities of the band. On 29 April in Sondershausen, the then-17-year-old band members Möbus, Schauseil, and Kirchner enticed Beyer to a meeting, and strangled him there with an electrical cord. Kirchner, in a now-infamous quotation, was reported as saying: "Oh, shit—now I've completely ruined my life." Schauseil claimed to have heard a voice in his head saying the nonsensical phrase "
Küster Maier", which he interpreted as "
Töte Beyer" ("Kill Beyer").
1993–1998: Imprisonment In prison, Möbus (born 20 January 1976) was able to carry on with the band under the temporary name "
In Ketten" (German for "In Chains"). A live album was recorded in prison and had since been released on vinyl. The tape
Thuringian Pagan Madness shows on its cover the grave of the murdered Sandro Beyer, and inside says: "The cover shows the grave of Sandro B. murdered by horde ABSURD on 29.04.93 AB". The band members were released on parole in 1998, because they had been under eighteen when they had committed their crime. Shortly after release, Möbus violated the terms of his
parole when at a concert he performed the
Hitler salute, which is
illegal in Germany. Hendrik and his brother Ronald "Wolf" Möbus also posed together in a series of photographs at
Auschwitz death camp, holding up Nazi banners inside a gas chamber and outside barracks. His parole was consequently revoked. He managed to flee to the United States, where he met
William Luther Pierce, but was captured there. During his stay in America he also got in a conflict about money with some of his contacts who he stayed with for some time, one of them being the then neo-Nazi pagan occultist Nathan Pett, who later left the far-right scene, and was apparently beaten with a hammer and threatened with a pistol by two persons. At first this was just a rumour, but Möbus later admitted in an interview for a neo-Nazi site that the incident had taken place. He was arrested by
U.S. marshals. In 2001, after his request for asylum was denied, he was sent back to prison for the remaining three years for murder. For mocking his victim and for the Hitler salute, he was sentenced to a further twenty-six months. On 15 May 2003, he was again sentenced to four years in prison. Möbus has since been freed and runs his own music label, called
Darker Than Black Records (founded in 1994), which distributes NSBM albums and merchandise on an organized scale since 2007. Two cars belonging to Möbus were damaged in an
arson which the Antifascist Action Germany claimed responsibility for, during a campaign in Berlin where there were also posters with Möbus' face and personal information put up, and
graffiti with messages against him and the label. When released from the last prison sentence, Möbus appeared on stage during a neo-Nazi event, although did not play anything.
1999–present: Post-incarceration The band Absurd has continued in existence since 1999, going through many changes of personnel, and losing all of its original members. The main line-up features Wolf, Hendrik's brother, handling vocals and Sven "Unhold" Zimper handling the instruments, with Sebastian Schauseil performing the occasional clean vocal part on releases such as
Asgardsrei (1999),
Werwolfthron (2001), and
Totenlieder (2002). Wolf and Unhold also released further albums as a duo;
Blutgericht (2005),
Der fünfzehnjährige Krieg (2008) and
Weltenfeind (2009), a split with
Grand Belial's Key (whom Unhold joined as a vocalist) and Sigrblot. Schauseil is still involved with the underground metal scene; he performed between 1999 and 2004 with the folk-influenced nationalist band
Halgadom, the black metal project
Wolfsmond (also featuring bassplayer Unhold, who played drums in Absurd), and the
neofolk band
In Acht und Bann. In 2002, Pantheon (USA) released a tribute album to Möbus, called
Jarl die Freiheit ('Freedom to Jarl'). In 2017 Hendrik Möbus assembled a lineup to perform live as Absurd at Asgardsrei, neither Wolf nor Unhold authorized the performances. In 2019, Gelal Necrosodomy of
Arghoslent and Grand Belial's Key joined Wolf's version of the band and was featured in the EP's
Pure Darkness (2020) and
Grabgesang (2021), Wolf performed vocals in the latter EP but has since left the band permanently to focus on a different project. In 2022, Hendrik Möbus released a new album as Absurd, titled
Schwarze Bande, and both his version and Unhold's version are separately claiming to be the "real band". In 2019, Hendrik Möbus was confronted by parts of the audience during a concert in
Denmark. A fight erupted and Möbus was attacked by a group of unidentified people from the audience who left the concert afterwards, but returned and threw
pepper spray at Möbus, which interrupted the show for a while. == Band members ==