Timelines

Between 2000 and 2007 the far-right terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) carried out a nail bomb attack in Cologne, as well as the murders of Enver Şimşek, Abdurrahim Özüdoğru, Süleyman Taşköprü, Habil Kılıç, Mehmet Turgut, İsmail Yaşar, Theodoros Boulgarides, Mehmet Kubaşık, Halit Yozgat and Michèle Kiesewetter. The crimes were only uncovered in 2011. For years, the investigating authorities had neglected the racist motives of the crimes and in many cases suspected relatives of the victims instead. In 2018, only one person was sentenced to life imprisonment, while co-defendants received lenient sentences. Victims' families and supporters accuse the rule of law of failing, as neither traces of a possible network of NSU supporters have been pursued, nor has the role of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the NSU complex been clarified. The media coverage of the NSU was characterised by racist resentment instead of compassion. In order to shed light on the political and social dimensions of the NSU complex, victims' families and supporters held their own tribunals. The first civil society tribunal took place in Cologne in 2017 and offered those affected a platform for their perspectives and demands for recognition and justice, which they were denied by the authorities and society. Further tribunals followed in Mannheim, Chemnitz/Zwickau and Nuremberg in the coming years.