The chairman of the NSU investigative committee in the Bavarian state parliament, Toni Schuberl, personally does not assume that previously unknown Bavarian helpers were involved in the preparation and execution of the NSU murders. “Further, as yet unknown, direct support provided by Bavarian right-wing extremists in the planning or execution of the murders and attacks by the NSU could not be proven,” says his assessment of the past committee work, which the Greens politician presented on Thursday in Munich. In any case, no evidence could be found for this. And: In his estimation, there were “probably” no local helpers.
The “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) was a terrorist cell consisting of Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, which from 2000 onwards committed ten murders undetected for years all over Germany, five of them in Bavaria. Victims were nine tradespeople of Turkish and Greek origin and a German policewoman. Mundlos and Böhnhardt killed each other in 2011 to avoid capture. Zschäpe, the only survivor of the trio, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 after more than five years of trial – as an accomplice, even if there is no evidence that she was at one of the crime scenes.
“Despite all efforts, the committee was unable to provide evidence of concrete contacts with Bavarian right-wing extremists after the NSU went into hiding in the course of researching the files and hearing witnesses,” Schuberl concludes. That had been one of the central questions for the committee of inquiry.