Neo-NazisGerman neo-Nazis targeted Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for assassination

Published 11 October 2013

Beate Zschäpe, the last surviving members of the National Socialist Underground, a violent German neo-Nazi group, is on trial this month for taking part in the murders of eight Turkish immigrants, one Greek man, and a German policewoman, in addition to participating in fifteen bank robberies and two bomb attacks. In testimony Monday, a police investigator said that computer files found in an apartment used by NSU member indicate that in 2002, the group was working on a plot to assassinate the then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

skinheads as a recent rally // Source: unkar.org

The Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (National Socialist Underground, or NSU), a violent German Neo-Nazi group, in 2002 had Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (in office from 1998 to 2005) as a target for assassination. .

Der Spiegel reports that the discovery was made when investigators for the German federal police reviewed computer files found in an apartment in the eastern town of Zwickaw which was used by NSU members. A policewoman testified in court on 8 October 2013 about the findings.

The police also found several photo montages in the apartment, showing Schröder behind bars with a Star of David on the chest, under the wordssentence “You’re the next!” (Schröder is not Jewish). The police say that it is possible that ratherthan being on a hit list, the offensive collage could have been a design for posters or T-shirts.

Reports of the montages first appeared in the German media in February 2012, but the October 2013 trial of Beate Zschäpe, the last surviving member of the NSU, along with four alleged accomplices, renewed interest in the images.

Members off the NSU have been charged with the murder of eight Turkish immigrants, one Greek man, and a German policewoman in a nationwide killing spree between 2000 and 2006. German police initially did not consider racism as the motive in the killings, instead suspecting the victims of possibly having had links with criminal enterprises.

The police concluded the killings were racially motivated after discovering the NSU in November 2011, following a bank robbery by two of the group’s members, Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos, both of whom committed suicide before the police could arrest them.

Zschäpe is charged with complicity in ten murders in addition to two bomb attacks in Cologne, Germany, and fifteen bank robberies.