Lessons from Germany’s NSU case

The neo-Nazi terrorist organisation, the National Socialist Underground (NSU), committed ten murders, three bomb attacks and fifteen bank robberies between 1998 and 2011. The group, which did not claim responsibility for the crimes, was not discovered by police until 4 November 2011. This case has been called one of the biggest ‘failures’ of German law enforcement and the secret services by politicians and the mainstream media. These failures provide an unprecedented example of the close connection between the secret services and the neo-Nazi movement as well as the structural racism within law enforcement agencies, which led to the consistent blaming of ‘victim’ communities and hence the following of wrong leads for thirteen years