Members of murderous neo-Nazi gang linked to German secret service

Germany's intelligence services have revealed that they are investigating whether members of a brutal neo-Nazi terror gang, responsible for a series of bomb attacks and cold blooded murders, were double agents who also covertly worked as secret service informers.

Suspicions of an extraordinary intelligence service link with the far-right group have emerged following a spectacular police raid in eastern Germany last week, which tracked down a neo-Nazi terrorist cell that had eluded police and prosecutors for more than a decade. The gang, which called itself the National Socialist Underground, murdered a policewoman and nine immigrant street vendors – who were shot in the face in broad daylight – carried out two bomb attacks which injured dozens, and robbed 14 banks to finance its operations.

The attacks were among the most brutal carried out by a neo-Nazi organisation in Germany since the Second World War. The Interior Minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, described them as a "new dimension" of far right terror. Gang members left behind DVDs in which they boasted about their murders and showed the bloodstained corpses of their victims, alongside bizarre images of the Pink Panther cartoon figure.

Yesterday Chancellor Angela Merkel described the activities of the gang as a "disgrace for Germany" and pledged that her government would take all steps to fully investigate why the far-right extremist group had been able to operate for so long without being caught. Last week police discovered the bodies of Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, both in their 30s, in a burned out caravan in the east German city of Eisenach, after they were called to investigate a bank robbery in the town. The two, ringleaders of the gang, had carried out the robbery and subsequently committed suicide, police said.

A third suspect, a woman identified as Beate Zschäpe, 36, surrendered to police in the eastern town of Zwickau after blowing up her rented flat in an attempt to destroy incriminating evidence. A fourth suspect was arrested near Hanover on Sunday.

However, it has since emerged that investigators found a pistol in the ruins of the building linking the gang to the murders of one Greek and eight Turkish street vendors in separate incidents across Germany, and also highly sensitive intelligence documents suggesting that gang members may also have worked as secret service "moles".

According to information supplied to the Bild newspaper, police discovered so-called "legal illegal" intelligence service documents belonging to the cell members in the ruins of Zschäpe's apartment. The Interior Minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, said investigations so far had not found any evidence of the national intelligence services having recruited members of the cell.

Independent

'Neo-Nazi' arrested over bomb attacks

German police yesterday arrested a suspected member of a neo-Nazi terrorist gang held responsible for a hitherto unexplained series of murders and bomb attacks in which a policewoman and nine immigrant kebab stall owners were killed.

Intelligence officials have described the string of murders and bomb blasts, which had baffled police for 11 years, as Germany's "worst case of right-wing violence in decades" and there were renewed calls yesterday for the government to ban the country's neo-Nazi National Democratic Party.

The suspect, a 37-year-old man named only as Holger G, was arrested early yesterday near Hanover. Police said he was thought to be a member of the "National Socialist Underground" terror group and was believed to have supplied three other gang members with a driving licence and passport. The arrest followed a police raid last week in the east German city of Zwickau, where the bodies of gang members Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, both in their thirties, were discovered in a caravan. Police say they probably committed suicide.

A third suspect, a 36-year-old woman identified as Beate Zschäpe, surrendered to police after blowing up the flat where she had been living in an attempt to destroy incriminating evidence. However, investigators found a Ceska pistol in the ruins, which ballistics experts linked to the murders of one Greek and eight Turkish kebab sellers in incidents throughout Germany from 2000.

The gang is also thought to have been behind a bomb blast at Düsseldorf railway station in 2000, in which several Jews from the former Soviet Union were hurt.

Independent

Neo-nazi link to 10 murders in Germany

German investigators say they can confirm evidence to link the murders of 10 people to far-right extremists.

Over the past seven years eight Turks and one Greek, all of them food vendors, have been shot in the face while at work, most on small kebab stalls. The tenth victim was a policewoman shot in 2007.

Last week two men were found dead during the search of a burnt-out house and caravan in the east German town of Zwickau. Two handguns believed to have been used in the murders were discovered. A woman at the scene was arrested. All three are known to have had previous links to far-right groups.

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said: “What has been reported so far is alarming. We now need a comprehensive explanation and what needs to be the focus is whether or not the suspects belong to a right-wing extremist network.”

Some community representatives think the authorities have been slow to make the link to extremists. Ken Kolat, Chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany, said: “There is unfortunately no real discussion right now in Germany about racism or racist terror. This discussion has to start immediately.”

euronews

Analysis: Germany's new neo-Nazis

A new generation of neo-Nazis has German security officials concerned: The black-clad mob is extremely violent and growing in numbers.

On May 1 the northern German port city of Hamburg experienced the worst violence it has seen in years. A group of neo-Nazis attacked police and far-left demonstrators; the mob erected road blocks, set cars on fire and hurled bottles and stones at police. The police later said there would have been fatalities if it wasn't for the water cannons and the riot gear with which the officers broke up the two groups. Nevertheless, dozens of people, including several police officers, were severely injured.

May 1 has always been a traditional day of protests in Germany, always dominated, however, by far-left violence. For the first time, the street clashes in Hamburg shed light on a group of neo-Nazis who are purposefully pursuing violence. They dress in black hooded sweaters and wear black sunglasses and hats, making them look almost like their far-left rivals. Calling themselves "Autonomous Nationalists," these young neo-Nazis don't believe in political work -- they believe in violence only.

"This group wants to be excessively violent," Hajo Funke, one of Germany's leading experts on far-right extremism, told United Press International in a telephone interview. "And the problem is that more young extremists are joining them, fueled also by activities like the one in Hamburg."

The estimated total manpower of the Autonomous Nationalists over the past year has doubled to 440.

While officials downplayed the importance of the black-clad mob in 2007, there seems to be no reason to do so today: Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble last week in Berlin said the violent neo-Nazis stood for a "new quality" of far-right violence. Heinz Fromm, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, a domestic intelligence agency, said his agents would "very carefully" monitor the development of the group.

Germany's strongest far-right group, the National Democratic Party, which over the past years won seats in two state parliaments in eastern Germany, likely will do the same. When it comes to dealing with the Autonomous Nationalists, the NPD seems to be torn between a desire to welcome those young comrades and fears of alienating right-wing conservatives. For years, the NPD has pursued the strategy of cloaking itself as a normal democratic party, which of course it isn't, Funke said.

"Some of the NPD cadres are just as violence-prone as the Autonomous Nationalists," he said. "Because of their common ideology, they are all designed to be wild."

Over the past years, however, the NPD has tried to look as tame as possible: In eastern German regions rattled by unemployment, the NPD founded grassroots organizations like sports and cultural clubs used to disseminate neo-Nazi propaganda. This development has government officials worried.

By organizing social events and even extra tuition for schoolchildren, right-wing extremists are trying to "nest in the middle of society," Schaeuble, the interior minister, said, adding that Germany had to make sure that this plan fails.

It won't do so by outlawing the party, however, at least not in the short run. Schaeuble said the prospects that such a ban would succeed were rather low.

Germany's highest court in 2003 already threw out such an attempt after it surfaced that the government was using witnesses who had been working for Berlin as secret informants from inside the NPD.

Maybe the government is hoping that the NPD will disappear for other reasons: The party has had to battle severe financial problems over the past years and could face difficulties competing effectively in future state elections.

At the end of this month the NPD will hold its annual party congress in the Bavarian town of Bamberg. Observers are bracing for violence, mainly because of the Autonomous Nationalists.

"We may see the entire violence potential there, and it may explode and target third parties, such as political opponents or even journalists," Funke said. "Everything is possible in Bamberg."

Middle East Times

Jewish leader sounds alarm after racist attack

· Brutal assault on Indians sparks call to curb far-right
· East German xenophobia 'scaring off foreign firms'

A leading member of Germany's Jewish community has accused the government of failing to control rightwing extremism following an attack on a group of Indian men in an eastern town. Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews said that until a nationwide action plan was launched to tackle the problem, attacks on minorities would only get worse.

His remarks followed a brutal attack on eight Indians in the town of Mügeln, near Leipzig, at the weekend. During a town festival the men were chased through the streets by around 50 young Germans, who hurled abuse at them, including the taunt "foreigners out". All of the men were beaten up, one of them seriously. "Yesterday it was coloured people, today it's foreigners, tomorrow it'll be homosexuals and lesbians and maybe Jews," Mr Kramer told the German daily newspaper Taz.

Prior to the Mügeln incident, police had been braced for trouble in certain east German towns as rightwing extremists commemorated the anniversary of the death of Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

Mr Kramer said that parts of former communist eastern Germany were "no-go" areas, which people who looked foreign should be warned against visiting. He accused the government of "delivering the same sentiments" every time there was an attack, but failing to produce results with its anti-extremist strategy. "This isn't hysteria," he said. "This is the bitter truth."

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, condemned the attacks and pledged to put the issue high on the agenda at a strategy meeting of her grand coalition taking place today and tomorrow. "It is not acceptable for people in German cities to be chased through the streets and beaten," she said through her spokesman, Thomas Steg.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that the frequency of far-right attacks is having a detrimental effect on the ability of parts of eastern Germany to attract foreign investment and tourism. "These no-go areas - so-called foreigner-free zones - really exist and non-Aryans know why they don't go there," an expert on rightwing extremism, Anetta Kahane, said. "The fact is that many American or Asian firms that have a mix of employees don't come to east Germany."

The Mügeln incident came almost exactly 15 years after a far-right attack on a home for asylum seekers near Rostock, in which 120 people narrowly escaped death. That attack led to a political outcry and closer monitoring of far-right activities.

Yesterday prosecutors said they were investigating two men from Mügeln, aged 21 and 23, for being behind the recent attack and were looking at charging them for breaching the peace. The town's mayor, Gotthard Deuse, drew criticism after insisting that those who assaulted the Indians were not locals and that the area did not have a far-right problem.

Guardian

German Jewish leader calls for ban on neo-Nazi party

A Jewish leader in Germany has called for a ban on the NPD neo-Nazi party.

"Political leaders must resume the banning procedure," Dieter Graumann, vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the daily Frankfurter Rundschau. "If the NPD were banned, the party would at least not have at its disposal the millions that it currently receives as electoral campaign support to propagate hate."

The NPD is represented in two regional parliaments in eastern Germany.

Banning the party has been a recurring debate in the country. A potential ban has been supported by several political leaders, including Berlin’s social-democratic mayor, Klaus Wowereit, but legal hurdles remain. The last attempt to ban the party was dismissed by Germany’s constitutional court in 2003.

Graumann’s call to ban the NPD came as extreme-right demonstrators took to the streets in the city of Frankfurt on Saturday but were outnumbered by counter-protesters, with police arresting 200 people. Some 550 far-right demonstrators gathered in the afternoon in the western city compared to 3,500 counter-protesters, police said.

Regional authorities had authorised the extreme-right demonstration. Many demonstrators arrived late, however, with counter-protesters blocking the area where they were to gather. Police arrested those who had blocked areas including a public transport station.

European Jewish Press

Anger at EU talks as Germany hit by Nazi jibes

Talks on a treaty to replace the European Constitution got off to an angry start last night, after Poland launched an astonishing verbal attack on Germany over its Nazi past and Tony Blair threatened to walk away from the negotiations.

European Union leaders have gathered in Brussels hoping to agree an amended form of the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2004.

But the new form of the document is proving intensely controversial, particularly its proposals to change member states' voting weights and enshrine a "Charter of Fundamental Rights" in European law.

Many major British employers fear that the charter would give their workers new rights to strike, and Mr Blair yesterday signalled he was ready to "walk away from a deal" that gives the charter legal force in Britain.

That is one of the four "red lines" Britain laid down before the talks began. Mr Blair also said he would refuse any move to extend EU powers over UK policy in foreign affairs, criminal justice or social security.

Arriving in Brussels for his last EU summit before stepping down as Prime Minister next Wednesday, Mr Blair predicted "tough negotiations".

He said: "We have laid down four areas where we have to have significant change and we will have to see that change - it will have to be done. The four areas we set down we do need satisfied in full."

Mr Blair's insistence on Britain's demands being met "in full" infuriated other EU leaders, who believe Britain must be ready to compromise. Jose Manual Barroso, the European Commission President, yesterday said Mr Blair was not being "sensible" about the talks.

But if Britain's position is generating tension in Brussels, it is a minor row compared to Poland's spectacular rhetorical offensive.

The draft treaty would revise the EU's decision-making process with a new voting system giving countries power according to their population.

That would reduce the power of Poland - which has 38 million people - at the expense of Germany, which has 82 million. The Polish government has reacted with fury to the proposal, threatening to veto a new treaty and badly straining relations with the German government, which is chairing the Brussels talks.

As part of the escalating war of words over voting reforms, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Polish prime minister, broke the greatest taboo of the modern EU by raising Germany's actions in the war.

Poland lost 6.5 million people during the Second World War, more than a fifth of its population.

Mr Kaczynski said that death toll explains the size of his country's population today. "We are only demanding one thing - we get back what was taken from us. If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million. Germans inflicted unimaginable injury, terrible harm on Poles, incomprehensible crimes."

Despite that painful history, he claimed, "Poles like Germans, while Germans do not like Poles".

The origins of the modern EU lie in an attempt to reconcile Germany with its wartime enemies, and even to mention the conflict is almost unthinkable to many EU officials.

Publicly, the German government did not respond to the Polish provocation. As the summit began, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said: "Each country will be taken very seriously as regards their concerns."

But privately, German officials were stunned by the verbal assault. "This just shows the character of the man," said one. Another accused Mr Kaczynski of seeking "confrontation".

Other EU nations also criticised the Poles. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, described the Polish position as "absurd" and Romania called the comments "a step backwards".

After the summit's acrimonious start, diplomats were last night resigned to the talks dragging on into the early hours of tomorrow morning.

Scotsman

Anti-Nazi symbols with swastika are okay: court says

A German court ruled yesterday that the sale of anti-Nazi products was not punishable even if the items contained the banned swastika symbol. The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe supported the appeal of a man who was fined 3,600 euros ($4,757) last year by a Stuttgart court for selling a range of anti-Nazi t-shirts and badges bearing the swastika with a red line through it.

Under German law, performing a Hitler salute, wearing Nazi uniform or displaying the swastika can carry the penalty of a fine or up to three years in prison.

Judge Walter Winkler ruled that the swastika ban did not apply for items that were clearly intended for anti-Nazi or anti-fascist purposes.

German politicians widely condemned the decision last September by Stuttgart judge Wolfgang Kuellmer to fine the man, who distributed the paraphernalia via a mail order service and a website.

Kuellmer had ordered the seizure of 16,500 pieces of merchandise, two palettes of brochures and around 8,400 publicity flyers bearing the logo – a red circle with a line across it superimposed on the Nazi emblem.

Kuellmer said increasing use of the symbol, which is popular among left-wing activists and anti-neo Nazi campaigners in Germany, risked making the Nazi hooked cross acceptable again over 60 years after it was outlawed after World War II.

Gulf Times

Family of seven still search for peace after five years of race hate

Eight-year-old Khalid Mohamed was helping his parents move into their new home when some older boys on bikes started chasing his family and shouting racist abuse.

As the bewildered Somali family tried to settle into their new house in north London, adult neighbours joined in the heckling. "Fuck off Pakis. We don't want you here," they yelled. "We will burn the house down."

Since that day five years ago, the Mohamed family - who fled war-torn Mogadishu before Khalid was born - has barely gone 48 hours without enduring abuse. Stones are thrown at their house at night; lit cigarettes pushed through their letterbox. Khalid's father, Abdalla, 46, has been grabbed around the throat in front of his severely disabled daughter and terrified wife. His car has been vandalised on three occasions. His wife, Asha, is called a "baldy Paki" because she wears a scarf.

Two men were arrested on separate occasions, one of whom was found to be carrying a knife. Both were released without charge and continue to live close by.

The family lives trapped inside, fearfully awaiting the next attack and convinced that one day their tormentors will fulfil their promise to torch their home. The five children, the youngest of whom is seven, cannot even play in the garden.

As his parents can speak little English Khalid, now 13, has grown used to being called out of class at school so that he can telephone the police to report the latest attack. "We are petrified. We don't sleep at night because we are scared something is going to happen. It happens on a daily basis and all night. My mum cries every day. She believes them when they say they are going to burn down the house. They look like they could do it," he explained.

Today, the sombre-faced youngster will speak at a conference to highlight an alarming rise in hate crimes across Europe and the launch of Coalition Europe, a new human rights network. Alongside an impressive array of leading politicians and campaigners from 13 different nations gathered at the House of Commons, the nervous, slightly built boy will talk of the terror and abuse his family has endured.

In Britain, 48,000 racist incidents are reported to the police each year - almost 14,000 in the London area alone - and the figures are rising steadily. The rest of Europe has seen an even more dramatic rise, even though they do not record cases as stringently as Britain has since the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.

Suresh Grover, of The Monitoring Group, which supports victims of racism, said: "These violent acts range from desecrations, damage to property and physical assaults and murder. The racist killing of Dr Nithesh Kumar in St Petersburg last September was a shocking reminder of the growth of racial violence aimed at any 'dark skinned' individuals living in Russia. The country has recorded 84 racist murders in the past four years, 54 in 2006 alone, with a 17 per cent rise in racist incidents to 537."

Similarly, the growth in hate crimes has been a major problem in Germany since unification in 1990. It is estimated that over 100 people have been killed by neo-Nazi groups since then. Last year the German government recorded 958 hate crimes, a 10 per cent rise. But campaigners believe that - as these countries do not have the same comprehensive recording procedure as Britain - most attacks go unreported.

Donatella Linguiti, the Italian undersecretary of state for equal rights, will join the prominent human rights lawyers Peter Herbert and Imran Khan and other figures from across Europe to call for a more stringent examination of the problem so that far more can be done to tackle it.

Mr Grover said: "Over the last few years the police have recorded an average of just over 45,000 racially motivated attacks annually, now up to 48,000. Community groups across Britain have witnessed an alarming growth of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism since 11 September. This unique pan-European initiative will demand action from all European governments and that they bury their inertia on this issue."

For Khalid and his family, the drive to combat racist abuse is painfully close to home. The attacks have become so frequent that Mr Mohamed has set up CCTV on his house to try to gather evidence as the police have repeatedly refused to prosecute. He has multiple locks and an alarm. His children all carry mobile telephones in case of attack.

At night he watches and waits for the groups of men who stand outside his house hurling rocks and abuse, terrifying his youngest children in particular.

"Even though my dad stays awake all night, there are five locks on the door. He just sits there waiting for something to happen," explained Khalid. The family of seven has begged the housing association to move them, but to no avail.

"We are seriously scared. We are always telling the police this is really serious but they don't treat it as serious. They treat it as if we are lying," said Khalid, who wants to be a mechanical engineer, but says he now has problems concentrating on school work and maintaining good grades.

"Since all this started, I don't get as much chance to learn. We are all so scared. We just want to move away. Dad pleaded with the housing association. He said we would all live in a one-bedroom flat but they said that would be illegal," he said.

Last night, London and Quadrant Housing Association said: "We confirm that Mr Mohamed has made a number of allegations of racial harassment against residents. We have investigated all these but neither we nor the police have been able to obtain sufficient evidence to support the allegations at present."

Independent

Spectre of fascism grows as neo-Nazis go on trial for burning Anne Frank’s diary

Ceremonial book-burning offers grim reminder of country’s dark past

Germany's growing neo-Nazi threat hit home last week when suspected radical right-wingers went on trial for burning a copy of Anne Frank's diary and an American flag.

Seven men, aged between 24 and 29, are accused of inciting racial hatred, denying the Holocaust and glorifying the Nazis. If found guilty, they face five years behind bars, a sentence that director of the Anne Frank Centre in Berlin, Thomas Heppner, believes should be meted out in full.

He said: "I felt ill during the case: the way five of the accused remained silent and Lars Konrad admitted burning the famous book. But I just felt so ill when he claimed that he did it to free himself of the burden of Germany's past'."

Heppner asked: "If that were the case, then why didn't they burn Hitler's Mein Kampf?"

In its statement, the state prosecutors' office said that "by using clear-cut neo-Nazi and Nazi terminology, the men had not just mocked Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945 at the age of 16, but also all the other millions of Nazi victims".

The book-burning took place in Pretzien, a picturesque little town in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. Its mayor, Friedrich Harwig, says his community has been torn apart by the the trial. Last June a summer solstice party in the town turned ugly when the accused men allegedly threw the flag and then the book into the ceremonial bonfire while shouting chants reminiscent of the 1933 Nazi book-burnings, which were organised across the country to rid the Third Reich of all "degenerate books"

As a key witness, Harwig gave his evidence on Wednesday. He was at the party along with around 100 townsfolk. Following allegations from his Social Democratic Party (SPD) that the burnings were an "assault on human culture" and that Harwig should have attempted to stop them, he resigned from the SPD. He says he will stand for mayor again next year as an independent.

"It was an awful night, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone to experience something of that kind. The answer is to speak openly about things: without dialogue, we can't hope for an improvement in the radical right-wing situation," he said.

But this incident is just "the tip of an iceberg", argues Bernd Wagner from Exit-Germany, the organisation which works at rehabilitating right-wingers so they can get back into "normal" society. Wagner works closely on grassroots projects with a number of people from Pretzien, together with the mayor and community groups to find a "democratic way out of the mess".

The problem, according to Wagner, is that there is a slow but growing trend towards radicalism. The perpetrators are not always unemployed, socially marginalised individuals. "Many in Pretzien have good, well-paid jobs," he added.

Many Germans believe such cases serve only to throw small insignificant groupings into the limelight. Wagner said: "If one tries to use community service as punishment, this is also a problem, because many of the neo-Nazis are fantastic with their social involvement - whether it's organising a festival or being the first to be on hand to assist during the flooding of the Elbe. Social help just gives them another way of propagating their Nazi beliefs."

Thomas Heppner argues that while the law can't change society, he hopes that the publicity will help Germans to see what's allowed and what's not. "Families and teachers must realise the threat of the neo-Nazis," he said.

The case, presided over by Judge Hans-EIke Bruns, is due to end by mid-March. State prosecutor Uwe Hornburg, who has been in his job for 20 years, said he has never been so shocked by a case, despite the state of Brandenburg, which borders Saxony-Anhalt, having the highest rate of right-wing radicalism in Germany. Last week's publication of Germany's constitutional protection report for 2006 showed that the number of crimes with right-wing backgrounds has grown over the past year to a total of 1399.

Sunday Herald