What went wrong?

It's appalling that three fanatical neo-Nazis could escape the clutches of police and then go on to be implicated in a series of racially-motivated crimes, including up to nine murders. As far as we know, it was a series of failures by various public bodies that made this possible. Now two of the suspects are dead, the third is in custody, along with a number of her alleged accomplices. This allows us to ask, with obvious caution, what went wrong to make sure something like this never happens again.

That's happening already. In Thuringia, where the suspected trio comes from, the state parliament has set up a committee headed by a former federal judge. In addition, the federal and state interior ministers have said they intend to set up an independent expert commission. We should let them do their work.

But now there's talk of another inquiry - this time by the German parliament. First it was demanded by the opposition Left party and the Greens. Neither of the parties had representatives in either the federal or the state interior ministries in question during the years of the murder spree. Negotiators from the other fractions also hesitatingly accepted the idea of a parliamentary committee. In the end, we're talking about reprehensible, racist crimes and no one wants to give the impression that they aren't searching hard for an explanation.

But an explanation is precisely what is least likely to come out of such a parliamentary committee. In Germany, it's above all the federal states that are responsible for the domestic secret services and for the police. This decentralization of power grew up historically; the years in which this wasn't the case were the worst in German history. Therefore the neo-Nazi trio mainly came under the watch of the state authorities. The parliamentary committee only has to hold members of federal bodies to account.

That's why it's to be feared that the parliamentary committee will only yield meager results even if they hold lengthy sessions. But, what's worse, it could even cause damage. If the state parliaments use their right to refuse to give evidence, it could end up in a political mud bath. The parties will accuse one another of preventing an explanation. Instead of unity in the fight against neo-Nazism, we would be left with the opposite impression.

Author: Peter Stützle / ji
Editor: Gabriel Borrud