Nazi Under Ground Murders in Germany

Link for Reuters Article

A far right group claiming to be members of a group calling it self the National Socialist Underground (Nazi Underground) have been found to very likely have killed 9 people in Germany. Weapons and other evidence including DVDs with pictur

es of the victims were found. The DVD's were prepared to be sent to Muslim centers and the media. These events took place in Eastern Germany.

Do you guys think these guys were an isolated group or members of a larger movement?

Considering their past and the way that their hisotry has been handled what do you all believe will be the German people's reaction?

Do any of you think there is a chance for Nazis to become a larger group in modern Germany?

edited 13th Nov '11 8:42:50 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Neo-Nazis killing people. What a surprise.

I think the modern German reaction will be "what the fuck?" followed by an epic manhunt and then all these people getting locked away for life because Europe Germany is spineless has different principles than we do and thus does not have the death penalty to give to these dickwads.

Who's 'we'? One, this is an international forum, two, not all states have the death penalty.

...my location is "the United States," so I would think you should assume "the same principles as we do" and when I say such refers to "the United States law code and the principles thereof."

Folks keep it on topic.

They already caught a couple of them. Two of them are dead by suicide after a botched armed robbery.

Isolated Gropus, they might member of some far-right group, but they action unikely to gain support, even far-right groups will know some sense to not support murders.

Possible like Norway reaction to Breivik, horrified and support to police in hunting them.

Yes, far-right and anti-immigrant groups have strong growth in europe lately, plus Eastern Germany still plagued by economic weakness, many will blame immigrant for this. Nazi due to its history probably become smaller sub-set of overall far right groups.

Most likely (and hopefully) just an isolated group. Odds are they won't last long, as I imagine that most Germans would be none too pleased with someone claiming to be a member of the Nazis, for obvious reasons.

edited 13th Nov '11 10:18:12 PM by carkaroth

I have a feeling the Germans themselves will give the strongest reactions. Along the lines of "We just wiped the last of your gunk off our collective souls. BACK TO HELL WITH YOU!"

No because Germany is too awesome for that to ever happen again.

Seriously though, it's sad that 9 people were killed and that fate allows these guys to remain extant, but I don't see any reason to believe that they will actually rise from obscurity and gain power.

edited 13th Nov '11 11:44:57 PM by annebeeche

The thing is that only now do people realize how all the murders and bank robberies are connected. The primary reaction here in Germany is "WTF epic domestic intelligence fail"...

Just read an article about it and... wow, that was an epic fail of the Verfasssungsschutz (something like "constitutional guard"). Just to explain a little, that secret service has a lot of connections with the neo-nazi scene in Germany, paying them money in exchange for information about the various groups. (I heard a joke once that finding all Nazis in Germany is easy - just look at those who get a pay check from the Verfassungsschutz). The leader of the Nazi Under Ground was even on payroll, and supposedly gave the secret service information about the actions and the locations of the three suspected murderers - which they somehow failed to act on. But it gets more fun: Fake I Ds found at an appartment of the suspects indicate, maybe made by the Verfassungsschutz, indicate that even the suspects were supposed to be used for spying on their own organization. And that's just a few examples of the massive fail of the police (there are a lot more). It's a disgrace.

edited 14th Nov '11 5:45:22 AM by Uchuujinsan

Not the first time the Verfassungsschutz has failed epically. Remember the whole mess with the NPD (current right wing Party in Germany) Prohibition procedure?

Seriously, the whole service is a joke.

edited 14th Nov '11 6:28:01 AM by 3of4

Yeah. For the uninformed, the Verfassungsschutz had (and probably still has) people in leading positions of the party as spies, so the court basically said "We cannot be certain that the unconstitutional tendencies didn't get created by the Verfassungsschutz and is in fact not a genuine party position" (simplified) and the attempt failed. The whole organization is just a lot of fail. -.-

Flock of Wolves, much?

Sadly -.-

I liked it. This makes the NPD unassailable for further attempts to ban it for quite some time, and that's a good thing. Really it's horrifying enough that one can ban parties here, even if in 60 years so far it have only been two. The NPD should remain legal and on the election lists.

Could be evidence of a backlash towards immigrant muslims, in some areas of Europe that's definitely a point of contention.

I feel bad about most of the German Intelligence/Military/Police agencies, I always get this impression that they want to get out there and do something, but have their hands tied and meet tons of resistance.

I think both your statements are rather based on public stereotypes about Europe and Germany than fact.

Especially the regular police needs more oversight. There was a minor internet surveillance scandal recently, for example (and IMO the real scandal was how minor it remained...), and there is no independent investigation office for acts of police brutality as there is in France or the UK. Or nameplates for policemen. So, yeah, if at all police here needs more oversight.

^^^^
I actually agree that it was a good thing the NPD wasn't banned. I'm much in favor of free speech (and the majority of the party are imho merely nationalists). But that the Verfassungsschutz is so fucking incompetent is sad. :/

^
I think the main problem is that the police in general has very moral motives, but tends to a "I did what I had to do" - and unless no one complains, it becomes routine. The ability to break into a house without court order "if danger is imminent"*

I really don't think the Verfassungsschutz failed because they weren't allowed to work. It was just plain incompetence.

It's more than that. I think it's unreasonable espirit de corps trumping any sense of ethics. Policemen don't go or investigate against their own, as numerous examples have shown. That is why an independent institution is necessary for such cases.

As a American-German-Irish-French-English-Belgian-Swiss-Somewhere Stansian currently living in Germany, I can tell you that this isn't really anything worth worrying about all things considered (as unworried someone can be about a gang of horrific murderous thugs), and a little bit insulting that people would think that something like this would bring back Nazism. That party has been disbarred for a very long time, and pretty much no-one with influence is stupid enough to try to drum up support for anything resembling it, and no-one who calls themselves Nazis are listened to by anyone, ad hardly any neo-nazi would be accepted by the party back when they were in power. Nazism is far Deader Than Disco, so we can stop worrying about this and try to think about how we're going to get through the year without economic implosion, or build a working nuke-free infrastructure that doesn't hypocritically import Czech nuclear power, and doesn't leave the southern half in the dark.

There are actually more Neo Nazi groups outside of Germany than in. It's not much different then some crazy people in America trying to bring back Dixie.

Radical extremists seem to be on the rise all over the place. It's just the Nazi's left such a big scar on other Westerners that people almost romanticize the situation. Never mind the countless holocausts going on in Africa, South America, and parts of Southeast Asia right now.

Forgive my veer off topic, I'll get off the soapbox.

For those who don't..its a rant about the fact that so many neo-nazis are basically get paid for being...nazis.

Its from the Heute Show (basically them german version of The Daily Show)

edited 20th Nov '11 4:16:01 PM by 3of4

Tried a translation with some liberties taken:

The Prime Minister of Turkey has said Germany should take his country as a model how to deal with such groups.

..*mumbles things about denying historic massacres, arresting journalists and all that fun* role model, my ass!