Far-right trap : neo nazi trial
The trial of the surviving members of a neo-Nazi cell in Germany has come as a shock for a nation till now busy finding ways to deal with the flagging economies of its neighbours. In a case that has drawn international headlines, the trial in the Bavarian capital Munich is being seen as a test not only of Germany’s ability to stanch any far-right tendencies in its populace but also of the need to better integrate its minorities.
The integration of the more than three million Turks into the German society has been a hot button issue with both sides blaming each other for not doing its bit. Most Turks in Germany are the descendants of labourers who came in large numbers for rebuilding the country after the destruction of the Second World War.
The trial of Beate Zschaepe and her four male accomplices is aimed at bringing to justice the only survivors of National Socialist Underground, the name probably a play on Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
They are accused of being complicit in the killing of eight Turks, a Greek and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007. The charges also include involvement in two bombings in immigrant areas of Cologne and 15 bank robberies. The travesty of the crime is compounded by the inability of the German police to crack the killings. The dark world of far-right extremists behind the crimes only came to light after two of Zschaepe’s accomplices committed suicide after a failed bank robbery. After this, she is known to have set alight her flat that she shared with the duo and turned herself in at a police station in 2011.
Before her surrender, the police never thought there could be a far-right dimension to the crimes. All through, police and intelligence agencies worked on the presumption that the ghastly incidents were the result of organised crime. That police completely ignored the possibility of neo-Nazi involvement points to a smugness in the administration which has probably detached itself from the need to stay alert to the travesties of history. The German parliament is probing how security agencies failed to make any headway in busting the crimes. The country needs to dig deep into the motives behind the serial murders, bombings and robberies. It cannot treat the crimes as a set of bizarre acts of an extremist group. The government, otherwise known for its industriousness and efficacy, should study the motives meticulously, roping in a set of experts from the social sciences and other disciplines and put onto perspective a picture that includes the need to take its minorities into confidence. By doing so, the state can lay a pitch for a well integrated society and probably prevent a recurrence of what happened.•
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