Bavaria: U-committee on NSU murders is imminent – Bavaria

More than ten years after the terror cell National Socialist Underground (NSU) was blown up, a new investigative committee in the Bavarian state parliament will most likely investigate the right-wing extremist series of murders. According to information from Süddeutsche Zeitung SPD and Greens want to submit an application for appointment soon. The approval of one fifth of all MPs is sufficient for this. The two factions already meet this mark, but would like to see a broader initiative.

It is still unclear whether and in what form the government factions CSU and Free Voters will also participate. A possible list of questions in the matter of the NSU is apparently ready, and details should possibly be presented as early as the coming week. It is said that the first parliamentary steps have already been taken. The application is planned very specifically and “only a matter of time”.

It would be the second time that members of the Free State have initiated such a committee on the subject: the state parliament had already dealt with possible deficits in the security architecture and the supporter environment of the NSU in a U-committee in 2012 and 2013. When the committee presented its final report, the trial against the main NSU defendant, Beate Zschäpe, had only been going on for a few months at the Munich Higher Regional Court.

Some of today’s findings on the NSU were only made known later, during trials or through research. The renewed NSU enlightenment in the state parliament would be the second U-committee for the rest of this election period, for a few months one has been meeting on the mask affairs in the corona pandemic.

With the death of the right-wing terrorists Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos in November 2011, the murderous activities of the terrorist cell became public. For more than a decade she was able to murder ten people undetected, set off three bomb attacks and commit numerous robberies. In Bavaria alone, the NSU murdered five men of Turkish or Greek origin, in Nuremberg and Munich.

Since the first committee, there have not only been new findings, but also unresolved questions. In 2021, the Greens and SPD parliamentary groups set up a working group to process the complex of issues. The relatives of the victims of the NSU had been promised that the murders would be fully clarified, said Cemal Bozoğlu (Greens): “We are still a long way from fulfilling this promise.” Florian Ritter (SPD) emphasized that this was “owed” to the relatives, but also to the public.

Some things about the role of informants are unclear

For example, a pipe bomb attack on the “Sonnenschein” pub in Nuremberg in 1999, in which the owner of Turkish origin was injured, was only attributed to the NSU during the course of the main hearing. Previously unknown whereabouts of the terrorist trio in Bavaria in the 1990s were also made public, and there may be a connection to hidden neo-Nazi structures.

In any case, the question remains open as to why Bavaria was a main target country for the NSU and how victims were spied on. The authorities are said to be still unclear about the role of informants; and the investigation, which has long focused on suspected organized crime. The Greens and SPD were also motivated in the preparations last year by a petition called “No final line”.

It was only in December that the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania decided to set up a second sub-committee on the NSU. There they also want to clarify why other neo-Nazi groups such as the “Nordkreuz” network were able to establish themselves in the state. Apparently, the Greens and SPD in Bavaria also have such a broader approach to right-wing extremism and its structures in mind. Only if the committee were to be constituted really quickly now would there be enough time in the electoral period to try to find out more about the matter in a meaningful way.

According to reports, the CSU and Free Voters are examining a possible participation in the initiation, which should take a few more weeks. They would then be extensively involved in the committee itself anyway. Recently, no fundamental concerns or objections to clarification could be heard in the government factions; rather the concern that the gain in knowledge could be manageable in the end, especially after such a long time.

Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) recently confirmed rather casually in a report to the Interior Committee that the state government is basically counting on the U-Committee: Before it is clear what exactly the committee is requesting, no data will be deleted, even if there are deadlines foresee. “We have nothing to hide.”

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