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So, everyone is really excited about the fact that there's Nazis in Germany. Don't get me wrong, Nazis everywhere, and particularly in Germany are disgusting. But that they exist shouldn't come as a surprise. Nor that they are murderous. That's what Nazis do: they kill people they don't like. They are dangerous. A minority of anti-fascist activist and researchers has been trying to point this out to the mainstream for decades.

I've been reading up on this so-called "National Socialist Underground". And while I won't comment on the whole affair any further than I did above, one question strikes me as obvious, but I haven't yet found the answer. Everyone is criticising the German secret service, and rightly so. At the same time, articles seem to make a point to mention that the Verfassungsschutz has been warning of rising violent tendencies of right- AND LEFT extermists.

For one thing, left extremism is entirely ireelevant to this story. So why is it mentioned here? Especially in the context of serial murderers, mentioning left and right extremism in one sentence with no qualifiers, is saying the two are interchangable. So where are the numbers on people murdered by left extremists? Even saying this much distracts from the original point: Left extremism isn't part of the story.

The same articles quote the Verfassungsschutz numbers on crimes inspired by right wing ideologies. And those numbers have been going down, according to the articles. So, if numbers of the crimes committed have decreased, why does the Verfassungschutz think it is necessary to warn of a rising tendency of right motivated violence?

And this is my real question: When the Döner-murders (how they were called in Germany) were happening, were they attributed to the extreme right? Probably not. They wouldn't have shown in those statistics - until now. In an article in February this year (http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-77108510.html), the Spiegel speculates the murderers could be Turkish nationalists, Turkish gangsters, or the Turkish secret service. Investigations covered drugs, illegal gambling, protection rackets. Because of the lack of traceable motives, the investigators came up with the theory of a psycopath.

Now at this point, it doesn't seem like a big leap. Psychopths who have it in for Turks and Greeks, members of the biggest immigrant communities in Germany. Since murderous neo-nazi attacks on immigrants came into the the spotlight thanks to Solingen, Mölln and Rostock in the early nineties, it should be obvious to at least consider rabid nationalist and racist motives when dealing with a series of murders of immigrants.

In fact, some investigators seem to have suspected Grey Wolves, an organisation of Turkish fascists. So how come they never considered German fascists? And if neo-fascist and racist motivations were never considered in these cases, how many other unsolved violent assaults or murders are missing from those statistics, because no one thought to consider the good old German nationalist tradition of killing people for having been born to the wrong parents as a motive?