Germany rocked over neo-nazi murder trial

BERLIN— Most of the victims were immigrants and their deaths at first failed to make headlines. Police were quick to blame the slayings on foreign gangs with links to gambling and drugs.

But revelations that a string of unsolved killings may have been a cold-blooded neo-Nazi campaign against ethnic Turks have shaken the country, forcing Germans to confront painful truths about racism in a society deeply conscious of the Holocaust legacy.

The sole survivor of the group blamed for the killings — the selfstyled National Socialist Underground — goes on trial Monday in Munich, along with four men alleged to have helped in various ways.

Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman. She is also accused of involvement in at least two bombings and 15 bank robberies carried out by her accomplices, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, who died in an apparent murder-suicide two years ago. Zschaepe denies the charges. If convicted she faces life imprisonment.

The case is being closely watched by Germany’s three million ethnic Turks, many of whom still feel marginalized by German society despite having lived in the country for decades or even having been born here.

“There have been only a handful of trials in recent German history that have had a similar effect,” said Gurcan Daimaguler, a Berlin lawyer of Turkish origin who represents some of the victims’ families.

He cited court cases against the far-left Red Army Faction terror group starting in the 1970s and the trials of East German border guards who fired at people trying to flee to West Germany during the Cold War.

“These were all trials that went beyond the courtroom,” he said.