The National Socialist Underground (NSU) and NSU 2.0 in Germany: Formation, Crimes, and Legal Proceedings

Authors : Ayşegül Dinçkan

Pages : 71-96

Doi:10.47155/mamusbbd.1639782

View : 69 | Download : 578

Publication Date : 2025-12-31

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The beginning of the 1980s marks a time when Turks who were living in Germany became victims of racist murders. However, there have been attempts to conceal the truth that these murders were acts of racism. On November 4th 2011, Böhnhardt and Mundlos, members of the NSU (Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund), were found dead by the police in their caravan after a bank robbery. Beate Zschäpe was prosecuted for the murders of 10 people between the years 2000 and 2007, 8 of them of Turkish origin. After the end of the trial, a threatening letter was sent to the lawyer in the NSU case Seda Başay Yıldız. Furthermore, threatening letters were sent to various people. The trial process ‘NSU 2.0’ ended on November 17th 2022. The lack of concrete steps taken to combat racism after the murders, the ignorance of factors pointing for a terrorist attack and the destruction of documents have raised suspicions that the police may have supported the murders. In both cases, the suspicion that the perpetrators were supported by people in deep structures, the reduction of the crime to a single perpetrator, and the lack of severe penalties led to the existence of far-right structures within the police, the continuation of far-right sentiments in society and the loss of trust in the state by the relatives of the victims.
Keywords : Nasyonal Sosyalist Yeraltı Örgütü, NSU, Irkçılık, Siyaset bilimi ve uluslararası ilişkiler, Almanya, Türk cinayetleri

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