German neo-Nazi confesses she could have stopped far-right murders

By Anadolu staff

BERLIN (AA) - Beate Zschaepe, a neo-Nazi in Germany currently serving a life sentence, has confessed that she could have stopped a far-right killing spree, but failed to do so due to her loyalty to her friends.

“After the first murder, I could have done something and prevented this from becoming a killing spree. I would have had the opportunity and didn't use it,” Zschaepe on Monday told a parliamentary committee investigating murders committed by the neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Underground (NSU) between 2000 and 2007, according to her lawyer.

Lawyer Mathias Grasel told local media that Zschaepe clearly told the committee that if she had acted differently after learning that her friends Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Bohnhardt had committed a murder, if she had told the police, things could have been completely different.

"I wrongly put the lives of Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Bohnhardt above the lives of the victims,” she reportedly said.

The lawyer underlined that Zschaepe expressed regret, but denied that she was involved in the killings.

“The fact remains: There was no active participation, neither in the preparation nor in the operation,” he claimed.

The NSU killed eight Turkish immigrants, a Greek citizen, and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007, but the murders have long remained unresolved.

The German public first learned of the NSU’s existence and its role in the murders on Nov. 4, 2011, when two members of the group, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Bohnhardt, committed suicide after an unsuccessful bank robbery. The police found evidence in their apartment showing they were behind the murders.

Zschaepe, Mundlos, and Bohnhardt had lived clandestine lives for nearly 13 years, apparently without arousing the suspicions of the German police or intelligence services.

Zschaepe was sentenced to life in prison in 2018 after a five-year trial. During the trial, she declined to give any insight about the NSU, and tried to lay the blame on her friends Mundlos and Bohnhardt.

- Shadowy far-right group

The scandal surrounding the NSU sparked a debate in Germany about institutional racism and the failures of German security and intelligence organizations, which have long been criticized for underestimating the far-right threat.

Until 2011, Germany's police and intelligence services dismissed any racial motive for the murders and instead treated immigrant families as suspects with connections to mafia groups and drug traffickers.

Recent media revelations have shown that the country’s domestic intelligence agency BfV and its local branches had dozens of informants who had contacts with the NSU suspects in the past.

But officials insisted that they had no prior information about the existence of the NSU terror cell or its role behind the killings.