For the second time since 2013, Bavaria’s parliamentarians are to deal with the right-wing extremist terrorist cell. It is doubtful whether the committee initiated by the Greens and the SPD can provide new insights.
In the Bavarian state parliament, a committee of inquiry is to meet for the second time on Thursday on the right-wing extremist terrorist cell “National Socialist Underground” (NSU), which was busted in 2011 be used. The initiative came from the Greens and SPD. One of the aims of the opposition factions was to clarify the connections between the NSU terrorists and the Bavarian neo-Nazi scene.
The votes of the Greens and SPD are sufficient for the establishment of the body. However, the other factions have announced that they will support the committee – even if some of them expressed doubts as to whether the committee could actually contribute to further clarification. Because the time that the members of parliament have is manageable: the work must be completed by the state elections in autumn 2023.
“It is good and important that there is no end to the investigation,” said the designated committee chairman Toni Schuberl (Greens) – according to the regulations of the state parliament, his parliamentary group is entitled to chair the second committee of inquiry of this legislature – the first deals with the Mask deals of Bavarian politicians. Arif Tasdelen (SPD) said they would work quickly. The designated committee deputy Josef Schmid (CSU) said: “We heard the call from the victims’ relatives for further investigation of the terrible crimes of the NSU and we want to do exactly that.”
The NSU murdered ten people
The neo-Nazi terror cell NSU – Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt – had been murdering through Germany for years. Their victims were nine traders of Turkish and Greek origin and a German policewoman. Mundlos and Böhnhardt also carried out two bomb attacks, injuring dozens. The two killed each other in 2011 to avoid being arrested.
The series of murders and attacks was dealt with in court for more than five years before the Munich Higher Regional Court. Zschäpe, the only survivor of the trio, was sentenced to life imprisonment as an accomplice at the end of the mammoth trial in July 2018 – although there is no evidence that she herself was at any of the crime scenes. The verdict, also against four co-defendants, is now final.
At the same time, there were already numerous investigative committees at the federal level and in several federal states that dealt with investigative errors and mistakes by the authorities. However, there are still many unanswered questions, especially with regard to possible other backers and supporters of the NSU terrorists. The first committee of inquiry completed its work in 2013.