16.11.2011
Germany is shocked. The local police discovered a neo-Nazi group,
whose members had been murdering immigrants for several years. What
is more, the members of the group served as informers for German
special services.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she was very ashamed of
her country fellows; a special committee was set up in Bundestag.
In the meantime, the problem of foreign migrants in Germany has
been getting more and more intense.
On November 14, the German police announced the discovery of the
group of three neo-Nazis, who had committed a series of murders of
immigrants from other countries. The criminal ring was busted in
Thuringia province. Another criminal was arrested in Hannover. All
of them supposedly cooperated with National Socialist Underground,
a banned Nazi terrorist organization.
The discovery of the group in Thuringia has left Germany in a state
of shock. The perpetrators - one woman and two men - are suspected
of killing at least nine immigrants between 2000 and 2007. In
addition, in the beginning of the year, the group robbed a bank in
Eisenach in eastern Germany. The police picked up their trail, but
the two men committed suicide. The woman came to police several
weeks afterwards and began to testify. Her testimony revealed
horrifying details.
The "Thuringer Defenders of the Motherland" appeared at the end of
the 1990s. From 2000 to 2007, the criminals killedeight Turks and
one Greek national. Their victims presumably owned kiosks and small
restaurants. In 2007, one of the gang members shot dead a police
woman.
The neo-Nazis committed several terrorist acts, although the acts
left no one killed. A bomb packed with nails blew up in 2000 at a
railway station in Dusseldorf. Eight Jews, who were returning from
German language classes, were injured in the explosion. Four years
later, the gang blew up a bomb in the Turkish quarter in Cologne:
22 people were injured.
It was also determined that the neo-Nazis were cooperating with
German special services, particularly with the Constitution
Protection Service of Thuringia. Employees of the special service
say that they lost the track of the gang after 1998. However, the
German media say that the special service was covering the gang for
years.
"You cannot help being left with the dreadful impression that the
danger of right-wing extremist violence wasn't taken seriously
enough," Thomas Oppermann, a member of the opposition Social
Democrats (SPD) said.
"We're seeing something inconceivable - we suspect right-wing
extremists are responsible for horrible acts of violence, for
right-wing terror. It's a disgrace and mortifying for Germany and
we'll do everything we can to get to the bottom of this. We owe
that to the victims," Chancellor Merkel said.
Germany's minister of justice, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger,
asked authorities "to investigate with all means possible the
dimensions far-right networks in the country have reached."
A special committee has been established in Bundestag to
investigate the case of the criminal ring and its connection with
German special services. The lower house of the German parliament
plans to discuss the issue as well. It does not mean, though, that
the parliamentary investigation will bring any results. Several
German politicians put forward a suggestion to ban the far-right
National Democratic Party (NPD) of Germany. This organization is
considered a neo-Nazi organization. There were many attempts made
in the country to ban the activities of the NPD, but the party
still exists.
For the time being, there is no connection between the National
Socialist Underground and the National Democratic Party. The party
program points out the need to restrict immigration to Germany,
although it does not urge anyone to violence against migrants.
Therefore, the attempts to ban the National Democrats may mean that
the "traditional parties" simply failed migration policies. Unlike
other parties, the NDP raises the issue of migration on a regular
basis.
There are at least 3 million people of Turkish origin living in
Germany. Kreuzberg, a district in Berlin, is known as "little
Istanbul." Signs
in the Turkish language can be seen in the German capital
practically everywhere.
Muslim migrants make up as many as six percent of the
80-million-strong Germany. It is worthy of note that the
participants of the 9/11 terror attacks in the USA were visiting
the mosque in Hamburg. The mosque has been recently closed.
There are also over 2 million immigrants from Poland, hundreds of
thousands of Serbs, Croats, Greeks, Portuguese and African
immigrants in Germany. Millions of Russian-speaking immigrants from
the former USSR may not find it easy to adapt to the local
environment. Many of those people speak very bad German, which
annoys the local population, and this anger may take criminal forms
at times.
The shocking story with the neo-Nazis revealed another unpleasant
aspect. It turns out that German special services connive at
neo-Nazi extremists. The investigation of the case will make
Germany look at the immigration issue closer. However, if they
eventually decide to silence all that, the "heroes" from the
National Socialist Underground will have followers. As a result,
Germany may turn into a large arena of inter-ethnic clashes. This
may happen just because the German government prefers to turn a
blind eye on the problem.
Vadim Trukhachev
Pravda.Ru
http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/16-11-2011/119639-germany_neo_nazi-0/