In recent days, the NSU 'business' has come back up in the news....mostly because someone in the government pulled out the 'secret' files which weren't supposed to be released to the public for another hundred years. The German government? Well....the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution now says they want to press charges against someone....but they don't know who is responsible for releasing the secret files.
So what's the whole NSU story?
Well....the story starts in Jena (old DDR, in the 1980s)....with three kids (2 boys and 1 girl) who 'clicked'. Girl and boy #1....were a couple. Then girl met boy #2.....and they were a couple. For some reason, the three became associates/friends. In the 1990s, the three developed a 'hobby'....which was more of a cult or political thing....being far-right.
This went to the extreme....where they were actually putting together their own Nazi-style clothing.
At some point, the BND (the German FBI) noticed the three, and passed info to the Jena police. A raid was scheduled (in 1998) on a garage cubicle that the three had. Yeah, explosives were found....along with anti-Jew material. However, the Jena police goofed up, and the three quietly slipped away.....never being caught. Had they been caught? The explosives would have been enough to put the three in jail for some period of time.
Around 18 months pass while in this 'hiding' situation, and the three decide to move onto the murder business. In September 2000, they end up killing a Turkish flower-shop dealer.
Roughly nine months pass, and the three go and kill another Turkish business man.
The cops in the middle of this? Their belief was that the Turkish mafia were behind the murders. Proof? None....other than the Turkish mafia being active.
Over a 8-year period.....the three killed 11 Turks.
In 2007, the trio attacked two German police while on a lunch break. This didn't really fit the general profile. One of the police died...the other survived but remembered little of the attack. It was shortly after this that the trio were figured out.
The two guys? They committed suicide. The girl....Beate Zschäpe....turned herself in, and so begins one of the longest court episodes in German history.
Zschäpe is eventually convicted.
The documents? Well....this is the interesting part. It was decided that the documents would be locked up for over 100 years before release to the public. Why? It's marginally discussed and the general answer is that sources needed to be protected.
Relatives of the Turks? Mostly furious at the secrecy of the documents.
My humble thoughts? I think that somewhere after the second or third murder....some government undercover person or insider to the group (it eventually got up to around ten of them) passed info to the state and federal folks....indicating a connection to the murders. I suspect neither the federal or state folks reacted....either because of marginal proof, or simply disbelief. In simple terms, the secret documents would lay out issues and probably should trigger a truth commission to be created.
The other odd part to this story? Well....the murders are awful random. One in 2000, with the second being in June 2001. Number three? Roughly two weeks after number two. But number four comes two months later. Number five? 2.5 years later. Number six? Roughly sixteen months later. Number seven? It comes a week after number six.
Location-wise? It's all over Germany....Rostock, Munch, Nuremberg, Kassel, Heilbronn (the police killing), etc.
Personally, I'm skeptical that the number ends at ten. A thousand-odd people go missing each year in Germany. I think it's possible that several other murders might have been in the mix.
So the NSU files are a big deal, and week after they've appeared in public....it's still probably in the top ten news items.
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