The series of racist murders perpetrated by the neo-Nazi terror trio National Socialist Underground represents a massive failure on the part of German law enforcement officials. But as the trial starts on Monday, editorialists say that German society is also to blame.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the trial that begins on Monday in Munich. Nominally, the proceedings are to determine the degree to which the defendant Beate Zschäpe was involved in the murder of 10 people, nine of them with immigrant backgrounds, between 2000 and 2007. Expectations, however, are much higher. First and foremost, German society is demanding answers to one central question: In a country marked so deeply by its Nazi past, how could a murderous trio of neo-Nazis remain undetected for so long?
Protesters in front of the heavily guarded courthouse highlighted those questions on Monday, with some holding up a banner which read “Why were the authorities blind?” Indeed, Germany’s Turkish community — to which eight of the murder victims belonged — along with many others in the country continue to wonder how police failed for years to explore the possibility that racism was the primary motive behind the killings. The series of blunders that characterized official handling of the case has further undermined confidence in German authorities
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