BERLIN: Far-Right Hate Crimes Creep Back Into German Society
The third member of that cell, Beate Zschaepe, 38, allegedly blew up their Zwickau hideout before being arrested. Zschaepe is now the focus of a criminal trial that is looking at both the alleged crimes and plans of the far right in Germany during the past decades.
The trial in Munich began in May and is expected to continue throughout 2014 (court days are scheduled as late as December 2014). Thus far the case has focused on the network of support the cell relied upon, from the mother of one defendant to those who allegedly supplied money and the murder weapon.
The fallout since the capture of Zschaepe has been significant. The German Interior Ministry has reviewed 3,300 unsolved murders since 1990 in Germany and determined that in addition to the 60 racially based killings they’d previously reported, there could be far-right involvement in an additional 746 cases representing 849 victims.
Berger said she’d been cautioned that many of the 746 cases now being re-examined would be unlikely to actually have far-right connections. Still, she added that most anti-hate groups believe there have been more than 200 such murders.
“The rhetoric of the far right hasn’t been as focused recently on Jews as on Muslims,” she said. “But we know very well that anti-Semitism is a fundamental part of the makeup of the far right. It just needs an excuse to come out.”
Muhammad Sameer Murtaza, who works with the Global Ethic Foundation at the University of Tubingen, said few who study the reality of modern German or European society are surprised to find that race-based crimes have been dismissed. Immigrants know that there are other groups similar to the National Socialist Underground that operate under police radar.
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