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Title: The Deep State
Author: Wildcat
Date: September 11, 2014
Language: en
Topics: fascism, Germany, immigration, racism, the state
Source: Retrieved on June 3, 2016 from https://viewpointmag.com/2014/09/11/the-deep-state-germany-immigration-and-the-national-socialist-underground/
Notes: Also available at Wildcat website: http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/actual/e075_nsu.html

Wildcat

The Deep State

Nearly three years ago, in November 2011, news of a double suicide after

a failed bank robbery developed into one of the biggest scandals in

postwar German history.[1] Even now, it remains unresolved. For thirteen

years the two dead men, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, had lived

underground, together with a woman, Beate Zschäpe. The three were part

of the National-Sozialistischer Untergrund (NSU), a fascist terror

organization which is supposed to have murdered nine migrant small

entrepreneurs in various German towns and a female police officer, and

to have been responsible for three bomb attacks and around fifteen bank

hold-ups. Although the NSU did not issue a public declaration, the

connection between the nine murders committed between 2000 and 2006 as

obvious: the same weapon was used each time, a Ceska gun.

At the time they were called “doner murders” (as in doner kebab) and the

police called their special investigation team “Bosphorus.”[2] Nearly

all the police departments working on the murders focused mainly on the

victims and their alleged involvement in “organized crime,” the drug

trade, etc. Not only was it eventually revealed that the murderers were

organized Nazis, but that the killers had been supported by some

branches of the state apparatus and the search for the murderers had

been systematically obstructed. As one famous public television news

presenter said: “One fact is established: the perpetrators could have

been stopped and the murders could have been prevented.” She also voiced

“the outrageous suspicion that perhaps they were not supposed to be

stopped.” The final report of the parliamentary investigation committee

of the Thuringia state parliament, published in August 2014, stated a

“suspicion of targeted sabotage or conscious obstruction” of the police

search. The Verfassungsschutz (VS, the German domestic secret service)

had “at least in an indirect fashion protected the culprits from being

arrested.”

Since the supposed double suicide on the November 4, 2011, the

intelligence services, the interior ministries of the federal and

central state, and the BKA collaborated to cover tracks, just as they

had collaborated before to keep the existence of the NSU from becoming

publicly known. One day before the connection between the NSU and the

last bank robbery was publicly announced, a consultation in the

chancellery took place. Since then, the investigation has been

systematically obstructed by the destruction of files, lies, and the

refusal to surrender evidence. In the current criminal case against the

alleged sole survivor of the NSU (Beate Zschäpe) and five supporters at

the higher regional court in Munich, the public prosecutor wants it to

be believed that the series of terror acts were the work of three people

(“the Trio”) and a small circle of sympathizers. “The investigations

have found no indication of the participation of local third parties in

the attacks or any of organizational integration with other groups.” But

it is clear that the NSU was much larger and had a network all over

Germany. And it is highly unlikely that the two dead men were the only

perpetrators.

Research on the NSU has shown that the VS had the organized fascists

under surveillance the whole time, without passing its information on to

the police. It had many Confidential Informants (CIs)[3] in leading

positions in the fascist structures – or rather, the CIs even built up

large parts of these structures. It is very unlikely that the secret

services acted without consultation with the government – but it is

certain that we will never find any written order. Sometimes public

prosecutors and leading police officials were included in the cover-up.

For example, the current President – at the time Vice-President – of the

Landeskriminalamt (LKA) or Criminal Police Offices of Thuringia ordered

his police in 2003 to “go out there, but don’t find anything!” after

receiving a tip about Böhnhardt’s whereabouts.

Obviously the German state apparatus has erected a (new?) parallel

structure that operates in accordance with government policies and out

of the reach of parliamentary or legal control. The

National-Sozialistischer Untergrund was a flagship project of this “deep

state,” supporting the new policy towards migrants that started in 1998

at the instigation of Otto Schily, then Interior Minister. Since the NSU

became known to the public, this apparatus has even been financially and

operationally strengthened.

The NSU complex gives us a glimpse of the way the German state

functions, and can therefore sharpen our criticism of the capitalist

state. This is of international relevance for two reasons. First, many

countries, such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Morocco, and Russia,

have recently seen mobilization, pogroms, and violence against migrants.

In a weaker form this has also happened in Germany, and as usual one can

see a pattern: the government stirs up hatred, fascists take action

(there have been at least five arson attacks in the first half of 2014).

Second, many states are preparing militarily for mass strikes and social

unrest. In accordance with an operational scheme that has shaped

interior policies in many Western countries since the Second World War,

state institutions make use of paramilitary fascist structures. A recent

example is the relation between the Greek security apparatus and the

fascist Golden Dawn.[4]

The Background: The State Lays the Ground for Racism

In October 1982 the new German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told Margaret

Thatcher in a confidential conversation that he wanted to reduce the

number of Turks in Germany by half within four years. They were

“impossible to assimilate in their present number.” A few months before

this conversation his predecessor Schmidt blared: “I won’t let any more

Turks cross the border.” In October 1983, the government passed a

repatriation grant. In the following years, the Christian Democrats

(CDU) began a debate about the alleged rampant abuse of the asylum law.

Although hate was stirred against “gypsies,” “negroes,” and others, in

its core this racism was always aimed against “the Turks,” the largest

group of immigrants. Kohl made this clear in his conversation with

Thatcher: “Germany does not have a problem with the Portuguese, the

Italians, not even the Southeast Asians, because all these communities

are well integrated. But the Turks, they come from a very different

culture.”[5]

Already in the second half of the 1980s, this government policy was

accompanied by Nazi attacks on foreigners. After German reunification

this process culminated in the racist pogroms of Rostock-Lichtenhagen in

August 1992.[6] Less than four months later, the SPD (Social Democratic

Party of Germany) and the CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany)

agreed to abolish the right of asylum almost completely.

The state racism was bloody, but it was not quantitatively successful in

deporting large numbers or discouraging immigration. At the beginning of

Kohl’s Chancellery there were 4.6 million foreigners in Germany; when it

ended in 1998 there were 7.3 million. Consequently, interior policy

focused on “police penetration” of “parallel societies” after the

Rostock pogroms and especially under the Schröder government. Interior

minister Kanther and his successor Schily imposed the definition of

immigration as “criminally organized” throughout Europe. This policy,

too, was primarily directed not against “newcomers” but against the

“Turks” who already live here. Small businesses owned by migrants are

generally suspected of involvement in organized crime. Even before 9/11,

the financial transactions and phone calls of whole communities were

screened and analyzed on suspicion of organized crime and trafficking.

In particular, the investigations targeted small businesses frequented

by large numbers of people: coffee shops, internet cafes, kiosks, and so

forth. From these places migrants can transfer money to another country

without the involvement of banks, using the Hawala system.[7] “Police

penetration” reached its climax with the search for the Ceska killers:

the “BOA Bosphorus” organized the largest dragnet among migrant

communities in the history of Germany: massive surveillance of phone

calls, mobile phones, money transfers, hotel bookings, rental car use,

etc.

The Nazis

Although the global economic crisis of the early 1990s reached Germany a

bit later than elsewhere because of the “reunification boom,” it was

relatively more severe. Unemployment doubled, “floodgates opened wide”

in the factories. The unions supported the crisis policy of employers

with new collective agreements to ensure “job security” and company

agreements implementing “working time accounts” over a full year. The

workers were left alone in their defensive struggles, even though some

were quite militant and creative. The (radical) Left was preoccupied

with the struggle against fascism and racism. They no longer analysed

racism as a governmental policy, but as a “popular passion.” Anyone who

tries to fight against ethnic racism in all its shades but omits the

dimension of social racism remains toothless at best: in the worst case

s/he becomes an agent of state racism.[8] Jacques Rancière described it

this way: “The racism we have today is a cold racism, an intellectual

construction. It is primarily a creation of the state… [It is] a logic

of the state and not a popular passion. And this state logic is

primarily supported not by, who knows what, backward social groups, but

by a substantial part of the intellectual elite.” Rancière concludes

that the “‘Leftist’ critique” has adopted the “same conceit” as the

right wing (“racism is a popular passion” which the state has to fight

with increasingly tougher laws). They “build the legitimacy of a new

form of racism: state racism and ‘Leftist’ intellectual racism.”[9]

After that shift, there was a strong tendency for antifascist activities

to focus on the socially deprived and their primitive racism, and the

state became increasingly attractive as an ally. From the mid-90s

onward, it funded most of these anti-racist initiatives. All these

changes were completed by the self-disarming of most of the radical

Left, which started adopting the aim of “strengthening civil society” at

the same time as it removed all references to class struggle.

The most important NSU members were born in the mid-1970s in East

Germany and were politically socialized in the “asylum debate” in the

early 90s. It was a phase of massive de-industrialization and high

unemployment in the East of Germany. The young Nazis learned that they

could use violence against migrants and leftist youth without being

prosecuted by the state. They realized that they could change society

through militant action.

In West Germany a new youth culture grew in the ’80s as well: right-wing

skinheads. The skinhead scene in the East and in the West was held

together by alcohol, excessive violence, concerts, and the distribution

of illegal videos and CDs. This music business allowed them to set up

their own financing. Still, a large part of their money was organized

through petty crime. From the beginning, many Nazis were involved in

prostitution, and arms and drug trafficking. Later they became heavily

involved with biker gangs and security firms, which are booming due to

the the privatization of state functions.

In the mid-90s various militant groups and other groups from the

rightwing music scene united under the banner of the Blood & Honour

network (B&H).[10] Soon after the German Nazi scene organized

internationally, making contacts worldwide and building an

infrastructure that stretched from CD production to arms dealing and

shooting ranges. At that time the police could no longer countenance

Nazi violence, and the Nazis had to hide their actions. In that context,

the B&H/Combat 18 concept of clandestine struggle and small, independent

terrorist groups (“leaderless resistance”) helped them reorganize.

In the former East German state of Thuringia, the Nazi scene was built

up by “Freie Kameradschaften,”[11] the Thüringer Heimatschutz (THS),[12]

Blood & Honour, and the Ku Klux Klan. This is the environment that gave

birth to the National-Sozialistischer Untergrund. The “Kameradschaft

Jena” consisted of Ralf Wohlleben, Holger Gerlach, André Kapke,

Böhnhardt, Mundlos, and Zschäpe. From 1995 onwards they were filed as

“rightwing extremists” in the VS Information System. Organized in the

THS, they practised the use of explosives and firearms, and committed

their first attacks. The other members of the “Kameradschaft Jena”

remained active in the scene after the Trio went underground in 1998.

And they supported their comrades: Holger Gerlach gave them his driver’s

licence, passport, and birth certificate, and he rented motorhomes for

them. Kapke and Wohlleben organized weapons and passports. Those two

organized the largest right-wing rock festival in Germany and maintained

international contacts. In 1998 Wohlleben became a member of the NPD,

the largest neo-Nazi party at the time. Over time he became its deputy

chairman in Thuringia. With the help of this network, Böhnhart, Mundlos

and Zschäpe could move underground and commit their attacks, probably

with local support.

The Informants System

The German State is directly involved in organized fascist structures.

But the direct and extensive involvement in the Thüringer Heimatschutz

and the National-Sozialistischer Untergrund stands out. In and around

these groups the VS positioned more than two dozen Confidential

Informants, or CIs. These CIs were not used to catch violent Nazis like

the Trio, instead they organized the militant Nazi scene in Germany,

developing it ideologically and militarily. The VS recruited mostly very

young fascists and made them into leaders of the scene. In an internal

document of 1997, the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office,

or the BKA) called these CIs “incendiaries” in the Nazi scene.[13] It

saw “the danger that the CIs egged each other on to bigger actions” and

found it questionable “whether some actions would have happened without

the innovative activities of the CIs.” There are many statements by

former CIs descriving how they discussed their political actions with

their handlers. In some of those cases the handlers prevented their CIs

from leaving the scene or told them to appear more aggressive. For the

German intelligence agencies, maintaining CIs is more important than law

enforcement. They protected them from the police in multiple cases so

that they could operate undisturbed. In the mid-90s there was a brief

debate about this problem, because it became known that CIs of the

German intelligence agencies fought and killed as mercenaries in the

Yugoslavian civil war.

In 1996 the Federal Interior Ministry began Operation Rennsteig: the

Bundesamt für Verfassungschutz (BfV, federal domestic secret service),

Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD, German military intelligence agency),

and local VS agencies of Thuringia and Bavaria coordinated their

intelligence activities relating to the THS and the NSU, at least until

2003. They discussed the recruitment of informants but also how they

could achieve discursive hegemony within “civil society.” Operation

Rennsteig marks a turning point in German interior policy, which really

took hold when Otto Schily, a former ’60s student radical and defense

lawyer of the Red Army Faction, became interior minister in 1998. There

was an unseen extension of the security apparatus and an adjustment of

the focus of the intelligence agencies. To adapt themselves to the new

international constellation (Yugoslavian wars, the first attack on the

World Trade Center in 1993), they centralized the German intelligence

structure and unified the handling of the Nazi scene. In this process

they also expanded intelligence activities within the Nazi scene. All

this happened at the same time as the shift in “foreigners policy” from

the attempt at “reduction” under Kohl to the “fight against parallel

societies in our midst” under Schily.

Everyone involved in Operation Rennsteig knew that it was an explosive

and not entirely legal operation. Most of the files concerning

recruitment and handling were incomplete, some CIs were not even

registered. Between November 12, 2011 and the summer of 2012, 310 case

files were destroyed in the BfV alone. They tried to destroy everything

connected with Operation Rennsteig, CI “Tarif,” and other important CIs

around the NSU. Again, the commands were coming from the top of the

hierarchy. A few days after the first destruction of files, the Federal

Interior Ministry gave the order to continue the destruction. Not only

did they destroy physical files, they also manipulated computer files

and deleted the phone data of CIs in contact with the NSU.

Who Was in Control?

When more and more high-level CIs in the NSU’s immediate environment

were exposed, they began to tell the fairy tale of “CIs out of control.”

This was just the secret service’s next smokescreen, after such cover

stories as “we didn’t know anything” and “we were badly coordinated”

collapsed when Operation Rennsteig became publicly known. It is a lie,

but many on the Left believe it because it fits into their picture that

“the Nazis can do what they want with the state.” It is therefore worth

taking a closer look at this point.

Who are CIs? The services usually try to recruit people with problems:

prison, debts, and personal crises. These people then receive an

allowance that can amount to a normal monthly income for important CIs.

CIs get support for their political actions and warnings before a house

search. On the other hand, there is a lot of control: surveillance of

all telephones, tracking of movements, sometimes direct shadowing. In

order to crosscheck the reports, the VS runs more CIs than it would

otherwise need. Time and again there are meetings of Nazi cadres with

four or five CIs sitting around the table. There were several CIs within

the NSU structure who did not know about each other. The great majority

of them did what the VS wanted them to do — passing on information,

betraying everything and everyone, while also directly supporting armed

struggle by providing passports, logistics, propaganda and weapons.

Some examples of CIs in the NSU structure:

Tino Brandt, the chief of the THS, was the best paid CI of the

Thuringia VS from 1994 to 2001; he helped the Trio go underground, and

afterward provided passports and money.

Thomas Starke (LKA CI in Berlin from 2000 to 2011) organized weapons

and the Trio’s first hideout, and he delivered explosives before they

went underground. He gave clues as to where they could be found in 2002,

but these were “not investigated.”

Thomas Richter was CI “Corelli” for the BfV from 1994 to 2012; after

this became public he was kept hidden by the agency and was found dead

in April 2014. He had “immediate contact” with Mundlos as early as 1995,

and was the link between the NSU and the KKK and co-founder of the

anti-antifa.

Andreas Rachhausen – “GP Alex” – brought back the getaway car the

three had used for going underground in January 1998, when Rachhausen

was already a CI.

Ralf Marschner was CI “Primus” for the BfV from 1992 until about 2001.

He rented motorhomes through his building company at exactly the time

when two of the murders occurred.

Carsten Szczepanski tried to build up a German branch of the KKK in

the early 1990s, while monitored by the VS. Between 1993 and 2000, he

was imprisoned for a brutal attempted murder. In prison he co-edited the

Nazi magazine “Weißer Wolf” (White Wolf), which propagated the concept

of leaderless resistance and sent greetings “to the NSU” even then. He

became a CI in prison. For his work he received many prison privileges

(besides lots of money). He supplied much information, for example that

Jan Werner had organized the Trio’s weapons. Immediately after his

release he tried to set up a terror cell like Combat 18. When his cover

blew in 2000, the VS got him a new identity and sent him abroad.

Michael von Dolsperg, (formerly See), a member of Combat 18, close to

the THS. From 1995 to 2001 he was a BfV CI with the code name “Tarif.”

He was rewarded with at least 66,000 D-Mark. After 1994 he was editor of

the magazine “Sonnebanner,” which proposed “going underground” and

“forming independent cells.” We know that some of its articles were

discussed by Mundlos, Böhnhardt, Zschäpe and their close contacts.

Dolsperg produced a total of 19 issues. In an interview he claimed that

“the BfV got all issues in advance.”[14] This is not the only case where

the VS partly financed and “fine-tuned” the contents of a Nazi magazine.

In Thuringia, the VS was consulted for anti-antifascist leaflets and did

the proofreading.[15] In 1998 Kapke asked Dolsperg if he could provide

housing for the Trio in hiding. Dolpsberg refused after his handler

advised him to do so.

Parallel to the story about “CIs out of control,” the intelligence

agencies created another one: “too much chaos in the intelligence

apparatus.” To support this legend they put on display all the internal

conflicts between the various law enforcement and intelligence agencies,

cases of “conflicting authorities” and the competition between different

agencies. One highpoint was the scandal around Roewer, the former

President of the local VS agency in Thuringia.[16] All this show of

confusion was used to make the NSU a pretext for the enhancement of the

security apparatus.

1998: The So-called Disappearance of the Underground

In January 1998, the LKA found pipe bombs and explosives in a garage

rented by Zschäpe in Jena. The VS had known about these explosives all

along. Nonetheless, Böhnhardt was able to leave undisturbed in his car

during the raid. It took days until the police issued a warrant for the

Trio because all those responsible were on sick leave, on vacation, or

otherwise unavailable. Obviously they wanted the Trio to go underground.

Already in November 2011, the famous German feuilletonist Nils Minkmar

described the nature of the “underground” as follows: “They didn’t have

to hide very deep, it was more like snorkeling in a bathtub: They used

to have a social life in Zwickau, kept in contact with a wide circle of

supporters and attended demonstrations, concerts and other events. Many

did know where the three were hiding. And if the right wing scene in

Germany has a problem, it is certainly not that it is extremely sealed

off, but that it is heavily interspersed with CIs.” In fact, today we

know that the three operated in an environment that was structured and

monitored by the VS; most of their main supporters were CIs. After

searching the garage, the police even found two address lists belonging

to Mundlos containing 50 names, including at least five CIs.[17] The

lists displayed the national network of the NSU, with contacts in

Chemnitz, Jena, Halle, Rostock, Nuremberg, Straubing, Regensburg,

Ludwigsburg. Officially, the police never analyzed the lists or used

them for investigation purposes!

2000: The Extremism Doctrine and the Beginning of the Murders

Two and a half years later, on September 9, 2000, the Ceska murders

began with the death of Enver Simsek. In early summer the BfV had

informed the interior ministry that “a few groups” were trying to get

the “structure and the equipment” to “attack certain targets.” These

groups were especially active in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg,

Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony. The BfV also kept an eye on the

Trio — after they went underground they were closely watched by the unit

for right-wing terrorism (!). Nevertheless the BfV claimed that these

small Nazi groups had “no political concept for armed struggle,”

although they actively propagated such concepts by supporting newspapers

such as the “Sonnenbanner.” Federal Interior Minister Schily used this

information to make a press statement in which he warned of the “danger

of Antifa actions radicalizing individual right-wing extremists. These

militant right-wing extremists or small groups could decide to

retaliate.”

The strategy was to build up fascist structures and to blame the radical

left for their existence in the public discourse, employing the

extremism doctrine.[18] The film Youth Extremism in the Heart of

Germany, made by the Thuringian VS in May 2000, is a clear example. At

the beginning it states that fascist and antifascist “scenes need each

other, they cannot live without each other” and that “violence as a

means to an end is accepted in the left-wing scene.” It describes the

fascists with the usual clichés: unemployed, uneducated, disorganized,

committing crimes when drunk. Roewer, the president of the VS, explains

the high number of right offenses “solely with the fact that scrawling

swastikas, roaring Sieg Heil … are offenses in Germany … because of that

the statistics appear very high with over 1,000 crimes per year, but

nearly all are propaganda offences.” The THS is mentioned positively,

Kapke and Tino Brandt are allowed to speak: “the Anti-Antifa

Ostthüringen was formed in response to violence from the left, to bring

those perpetrators to light,” and “We are representatives of the

National Democratic Party of Germany in Jena … We are fundamentally

opposed to violence.”

2003-2005: The Manhunt is Discontinued; Bomb Attack in Cologne

In 2003 four immigrants from Turkey had already been killed. Evidence

piled up that the murders could have a right-wing extremist background.

In March 2003 the Italian secret service gave the VS evidence of a

network of European Nazis that prepared murders of immigrants. The FBI

had analysed the murders and regarded “hatred of Turks” as a motive for

the murders. In Baden-Württemberg CI “Erbse” revealed that there was a

Nazi group called NSU and one member was called “Mundlos:” the handler

was advised to destroy this information. It was decided to let the Trio

disappear.

In June 2004, a nail bomb exploded in the Keupstraße in Cologne. The

attack resembled other right-wing attacks, for example the London nail

bombings by the Nazi David Copeland five years earlier. But the Federal

Interior Minister Schily announced two days later: “The findings of our

law enforcement agencies do not indicate a terrorist background, but a

criminal one.” He definitely knew better!

The shops and restaurants in the Keupstraße are almost exclusively run

by immigrants. Many of these shops are very successful; some

businesspeople even joined in an initiative to become active in local

politics with their own demands. The attack ended these attempts. The

uncertainty as to who was behind the attack and the crackdown by the

police on the victims directly after created great distrust in the

Keupstraße, which is still felt to this day.

The Keupstraße bombing and its aftermath exemplify the structural

interaction of state institutions with the fascist terror: first the

attack terrorizes the immigrants, then they are harassed by the police

and the media. This harassment makes the intentions of the NSU a

reality: “foreign profiteers” and “foreign mafias” were marked and cut

off from the German “Volkskörper” (“German people’s body”).

2006-2007: Murders of Migrants Stop, Police Officer Kiesewetter is

Murdered

In April 2006 two people were killed within three days: kiosk owner

Mehmet Kubasik in Dortmund and Halit Yozgat in his internet café in

Kassel. The body count of the Ceska murders went up to nine. The

victims’ relatives organized joint demonstrations in Kassel and

Dortmund, shouting the slogan “No tenth victim!” After the

demonstrations the series of murders stopped.

The murder in Kassel showed clearly that the VS wanted to sabotage all

investigations – and that this was a decision from the top of the

hierarchy: at the time of the murder the Hessian VS officer Andreas

Temme was present in Yozgat’s internet café. Temme was known as a gun

fanatic and collected fascist literature. He was the only person present

at the murder scene and did not come forward to the police. At that time

he was the handler of a fascist CI with whom he had a long phone call an

hour before the murder. The police saw Temme as a suspect for the entire

Ceska series. Nevertheless, the Hessian VS refused to give the police

any information; otherwise someone “would just have to put a dead body

near a CIs or a handler” to “paralyze the whole VS.” The dispute between

the police and the VS was taken up to the Hessian interior minister

Bouffier, who stopped the investigations after consultation with the

BfV.

Just over a year later, on April 25, 2007, the police officer Michèle

Kiesewetter was shot in her police car. Her colleague Martin Arnold,

sitting next to her, survived a headshot. After four and a half years

the investigations still had not gotten anywhere. After the NSU became

publicly known, politicians and the public prosecutor insisted

obstinately that Kiesewetter had been murdered by chance and that

Böhnhardt and Mundlos had been the sole perpetrators. But that story

does not add up![19] In the case of Kiesewetter, the poor performance of

the investigation teams cannot be explained by “racism.” The murder

victim was part of the police. Why the need for a cover-up?

After the murder in Heilbronn, it became quiet around the NSU. Four and

a half years later, suddenly there were two bank robberies that were

attributed to the NSU. After the second of these failed, Böhnhard and

Mundlos allegedly committed suicide and the NSU became a matter of

public knowledge.

Germany’s “Security Structure” and the Nazis

One has to make use of the far right, no matter how reactionary they

are… Afterwards it is always possible to get rid of them elegantly… One

must not be squeamish with auxiliary forces.

– Franz Joseph Strauß[20]

Since at least the disclosures starting in Italy in the second half of

1990, it has been known that NATO keeps armed fascist troops as a

reserve intervention force. Only states with such a “stay-behind”

structure could become NATO members after the Second World War. In case

of a Soviet occupation this reserve was supposed to fight as a guerrilla

force behind the front (hence the name stay-behind). But it also had to

prevent Communist Party election victories and other forms of radical

social change. In West Germany the stay-behind troops were called

Technischer Dienst (technical services) and were built up by Nazi war

criminals such as Klaus Barbie under US leadership. This became publicly

known for the first time in 1952.[21]

According to a German government report of December 1990, in which the

existence of stay-behind structures was admitted, “preparations for the

defence of the state” were made in cooperation with the

Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, German foreign intelligence agency) from

1956 onwards. Heinz Lembke was part of these structures. He delivered

weapons to the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann[22] in the ’70s. Lembke’s huge

arsenal was discovered incidentally by forestry workers in 1981. The

night after Lembke agreed to disclose who had pulled the strings, he was

found hanged in his cell.

The stay-behind structures obviously changed their character in the 70s

and 80s (in Italy they were called Gladio and took part in something

they must have understood as a civil war from 1969 to 1989.) In the

1990s they changed their direction again: now Islamism was the main

enemy – it was perhaps at this point that new personnel were recruited.

The thread connecting them: fascist groups as reserve intervention

forces.

Christian Menhorn’s testimony at the penultimate session of the BUA[23]

is typical of the secret services’ self-confidence. Menhorn was

responsible for the THS at the time. He appeared as the best-informed VS

analyst. He gave the BUA members the impression that he knew a lot more

about the Nazi scene than they did and reprimanded them repeatedly. The

questions put to him centered on why the VS prevented any mention of the

Trio in a joint internal paper by the VS and BKA. Menhorn said that the

VS, in opposition to the BKA, knew that the Trio was “irrelevant.” That

was after the first murders had already happened. When he was asked for

the reasons for this fatal denial, his immediate reply was very brief

but still revealed what the VS did at that time: “We adjusted our

information.”[24]

Menhorn, Richard Kaldrack (alias; Marschner’s handler), Thomas Richter,

Mirko Hesse, Martin Thein (Dolsperg’s handler) and Gordian Meyer-Plath,

Scepanski’s handler and head of the Saxony VS, are all part of a new

generation, born in 1966 or later, who came straight from school or

university and started working for the VS. They all stand for the

extremism doctrine; some of them have used it for an academic career.

Thein for example has published books on Ultras and “fan culture” with

leftwing publishers. It is very unlikely that those agents/handlers, who

were very young at the time, could have taken important decisions (not

stopping the Trio, giving them arms, keeping information from the police

… ) without consultation with the hierarchy. They were instructed by old

hands like Norbert Wießner, Peter Nocken and Lothar Lingen (alias), who

won their wings fighting the Red Army Faction. Lingen set up a

department in the BfV exclusively for “right terror” at the beginning of

the 90s. He could be called the highest-ranking agent/handler: it was he

who coordinated the destruction of files after the existence of the NSU

became public knowledge.

Behind them there was a strategic level of a very few high officials

whose careers swung between the interior ministry, the chancellery and

the top levels of the services (e.g. Hanning and Fritsche).

Intelligence, Nazis, and the War

Since the mid-90s Germany has almost always been at war. The biggest

missions were those in Yugoslavia since 1995 and in Afghanistan since

2002. The role of intelligence became far more important, playing a

greater role in securing German territory, holding down the domestic

opposition to the war, and monitoring the Bundeswehr (German army)

soldiers. To these ends it uses intelligence operations against

opponents of the war, it infiltrates Islamist groups, and it cooperates

with neo-fascist soldiers and mercenaries.

Many German and Austrian Nazis fought in the Yugoslavian civil wars,

especially on the Croatian side. This involvement was organized by

contacts in the “Freien Kameradschaften” and was known to the German

government all along. At the same time, the German government ignored

the embargo and sent military instructors to Croatia. August Hanning

(see below) told the BUA that they were fighting against the Islamists

since the mid-90s – and could not be bothered with the Nazis. They were

focused on the “presence of al-Qaeda terrorist groups” and not on the

extreme right-wing terrorists in Bosnia. What this statement obscures,

of course, is that they had previously had strongly supported the

Islamist militias, when these were not yet called “al-Qaeda.”

These wars were quite lucrative for some Nazis. Normally they got no pay

but they were allowed to loot. They took part in “ethnic cleansing.” The

regular Croatian army and the professional mercenaries[25] conquered a

town and marked the houses of “Serbs.” Then the Nazis were allowed to

‎plunder and murder. After their return to Germany some Nazis could build

up companies (and get leading positions in the NPD and other

organizations).

The Bundeswehr has been called an “expeditionary force” since 2006. It

became an all-volunteer military in July 2011 and can also be used

inside Germany. So far, Germany has had little direct experience of the

“privatization of warfare,” but the Bundeswehr is actively trying to

eliminate this “shortcoming,” seeking to create its own private shadow

armies with the support of the Federal Employment Agency. (This agency

finances the training and “certification of safety personnel for

international assignments”).

Operational Cores and Control from Above

You can see that the structure that led the NSU is still intact by

looking at the systematic action to destroy important files. The heads

of the agencies were immediately operationally active. On a strategic

level they set the course for the further upgrade of the law enforcement

agencies with targeted public relations work. In total five presidents

of VS agencies were forced to resign. These resignations were intended

“to provide breathing space for the Minister of the Interior,” as one of

these directors put it. But above all the resignations were supposed to

allow the the operational work to continue undisturbed. The “deep state”

– this dense web of intelligence agencies, military, and police that

supports government actions and implements its regulations with

extra-legal means, “freelance” employees and “auxiliary forces” – must

not become visible.

August Hanning is certainly one of the strategic coordinators of this

structure. From 1986 to 1990 he was Security Officer in the embassy in

East Berlin, among other things responsible for prisoner ransom. In 1990

he moved to the German chancellery and in 1998 he became president of

the BND. Under his leadership the BND assisted in abductions and torture

by the CIA. Among other things, Hanning argued against the return of

Guantanamo prisoner Murat Kurnaz, although he knew of his innocence.[26]

He became secretary of state in the interior ministry late in 2005.

During his examination before the BUA he said in relation to the NSU

complex that “the security structure of Germany has proved itself.”

Another important figure is Klaus-Dieter Fritsche (CSU). Since the

beginning of this year he has been federal government commissioner for

the federal intelligence services, a newly created post. He is at the

height of his career now. In 2009 he succeeded Hanning as Interior

Ministry Secretary of State: in this capacity he was known as “Germany’s

most powerful official” and “the secret interior minister.” Previously

he was intelligence coordinator at the federal chancellery and before

that, from 1996 to 2005, he was vice-president of the BfV with

responsibility for the management of CIs like Corelli, Tarif and Primus.

At the BUA he expressed the self-image of the “deep state” clearly:

“secrets that could affect the government’s ability to act if revealed,

must not be revealed… the interests of the state are more important than

a parliamentary investigation.”

This “deep state” has a long tradition in Germany: it survived both 1933

and 1945. In 1933 the Nazis could smash the (Communist) opposition

quickly, because the political police had previously created files about

them which they immediately made available to the Nazi government. After

1945 the secret services, police agencies, and the administrative

apparatus continued with essentially the same personnel. The BND, the VS

and the stay-behind structures were made up of old Nazis. But today this

complex runs across party lines. In the case of the NSU, both CDU and

SPD Interior Ministers of the states played a role. BKA chief Ziercke is

member of the SPD, while the public prosecutor is from the FDP [Free

Democratic Party, a liberal party]. In Thuringia, interior ministers

openly fought antifascist activities in cooperation with the VS whether

they were from the SPD or the CDU, and so on.

The VS was an important tool in the domestic policy of all previous

governments. In the mid-50s it helped to ban the Communist Party; in the

60s it worked with intelligence operations and agent-provocateurs

against the youth movement. At the beginning of the 70s it helped the

Brandt government to implement “professional bans”: 3.5 million

applicants for civil service were audited, 11,000 applicants were banned

from work as civil servants. There were unofficial disciplinary

procedures and dismissals, too.

These structures survived the collapse of the Eastern Bloc: the security

services were even able to use them to expand their sphere of influence.

This was reinforced by 9/11: During the war on terror intelligence

agencies worldwide had a massive boost, similar to that of the Cold War.

The United States enhanced its security apparatus with the Patriot Acts

to ensure “homeland security.” In Germany, the Joint Counter-Terrorism

Centre was founded in 2004 to coordinate BKA, BND, VS and the LKAs. The

BKA Act of 2009 provides the BKA with means “to respond to threats of

international terrorism,” which were previously only available to the

police authorities of the states (computer and network surveillance,

dragnets, use of undercover investigators, audio and video surveillance

of housing and telecommunications). In addition, the BKA can now

investigate without concrete suspicion on its own initiative, without

the approval of an prosecutor.

The development of the scandals surrounding the NSU and the surveillance

of the NSA and its western partners (which include the German agencies)

has made clear that the power of the ‘deep state’ in Germany is stronger

than was expected. It was never touched and has survived all scandals.

Across party lines, parliamentary investigation is conducted with

special consideration for raison d‘état. This ensures that the deep

state is not affected and that police and intelligence agencies continue

to be empowered, provided with additional rights and encouraged to

cooperate more closely. Because of this, the Bundestag investigation

committee arrived at the non-factual conclusions that there is “no

evidence to show that any authority was involved in the crimes (of the

NSU) in any manner, or supported or approved them” and that there was no

evidence “that before November 4, 2011 any authority had knowledge” of

the NSU or its deeds or “helped it to escape the grasp of the

investigating authorities.”[27]

This raison d‘état also includes the PdL (Partei die Linke – Left

Party), which participated “constructively” in the BUA and supported its

final report. The PdL is the left-wing opposition party in Germany. It

was formed in 2007 through a merger of the successor of the SED (state

party of former East Germany) and the Left opposition in the SPD. It is

increasingly supported by sections of the radical left. So far, the VS

had spied on the PdL. As part of the final declaration of the BUA the

PdL has been assured that it will be no longer monitored by the secret

services.

The Nazi scene is hardly affected: the unmasking of the NSU has not

weakened it, instead many are encouraged to pursue their goals at

gunpoint. They are arming themselves. In 2012, there were 350 cases of

gun use registered. That was a peak, but in 2013, the use of firearms by

Nazis increased further. Refugee shelters are attacked much more

frequently again.

There is no reason to believe that we could take action against the

brown plague via the state. At the trial in Munich, the public

prosecutor is doing a political job, trying to deal with the case

according to the ruling doctrine.

A weakness of large parts of the “left” opposition and the radical Left

becomes apparent: after the pogroms of the early ’90s many abandoned the

working class as a revolutionary force. They could therefore only turn

to “civil society” and thus ultimately the state as an ally against the

Nazis. This ally supported fascist structures and helped to establish

them, while at the same time it gave the left-wing opposition the

opportunity to turn itself into a force supportive of the state. This

fact paralyses many Antifa and other leftwing groups. Instead of naming

the state’s role in the NSU complex, they focus on the investigation

committees and the trial, they lose themselves in the details which are

produced there. There were no significant movements on the streets when

the NSU became public. All this allows the state apparatus to minimize

the NSU – but many people still feel the horror.

NSU timeline:

List of Abbreviations

VS = German domestic secret service

BfV = Federal office of the domestic secret service

MAD = German military intelligence agency

BND = German foreign intelligence agency

BUA = Parliamentary investigation committee

NSU = National Socialist Underground

B&H = Blood & Honour

Trio = Böhnhardt, Mundlos, Zschäpe

BAW = German public prosecutor

BOA = Special investigation team

LKA = The “Criminal Police Offices” of Germany’s 16 federal states

(Länder). Each incorporates a ‘state security’ division.

BKA = Federal equivalent of the LKA, with reponsibility for “national

security,” “counter-terrorism,” etc.

THS = Thüringer Heimatschutz (Thuringia Homeland Protection):

coordinating network of the neo-Nazi Freie Kameradschaften groups in

Thuringia, eastern Germany. See also footnotes 9 and 10.

[1] What follows is based on four articles previously published in

Wildcat

. These in turn were based on the research of antifascist groups, on

newspaper articles, on the reports from parliamentary investigation

committees and on books. We use a lot of names of German Nazis, German

towns, German cops and politicians. Most do not have any meaning outside

of Germany. But we hope that in the “Age of Google” they can help you if

you want to check the facts or go deeper.

[2] We will refer to some of the German security agencies. There are

three intelligence agencies in Germany. The Bundesnachrichtendienst

(BND; Federal Intelligence Service) is the foreign intelligence agency

of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor’s Office. The

Militärischer Abschirmdienst (Military Counterintelligence Service, MAD)

is a federal intelligence agency and is responsible for military

counterintelligence. The third agency, Germany’s domestic intelligence

service, is called “Verfassungsschutz” and has a federated structure.

Aside from the federal “Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz”(BfV; Federal

Office for the Protection of the Constitution) there are also 16 so

called Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz (LfV; State Authorities for the

Protection of the Constitution) – one for each state – which are

independent of the BfV. They are tasked with intelligence-gathering on

threats against the state order and with counter-intelligence.

[3] In the language of the German police and intelligence, confidential

informants are called “V-Leute” or “V-Männer.” The V stands for

Vertrauen, which means confidence.

↩

[4] Wildcat has published an article about the Golden Dawn in Greece, “

Fascists in Greece: From the streets into parliament and back

.”

[5] Claus Hecking, “

Britische Geheimprotokolle: Kohl wollte offenbar jeden zweiten Türken loswerden

,” Spiegel Online, August 1, 2013.

[6] There were many racist pogroms in Germany at the beginning of the

90s. The first peak was in September 1991 in Hoyerswerda, a town in

northeastern Saxony. On four nights there were attacks against a hostel

mainly used by Mozambican contract workers. The second peak was the

pogroms in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: Between

August 22 and 24, 1992, violent xenophobic riots took place; these were

the worst mob attacks against migrants in postwar Germany. There were

also arson attacks against Turkish houses in which eight people

died.There are two Wildcat articles in English about these pogroms and

their consequences, “

Rostock, or: How the New Germany is being governed

,” from Wildcat 60, 1992; and “

Critique of autonomous anti-fascism

,” from Wildcat 57, 1991.

[7] The Hawala system is an informal value-transfer system based on a

huge network of money brokers. This network makes it possible to send

money to an acquaintance in a cheap and confidential way. There are no

promissory instruments exchanged between the hawala brokers: the system

is solely based on trust between the brokers.

[8] By social racism we mean racism against people from lower social

strata, people who don’t integrate well in society, people living from

benefits, etc. Étienne Balibar uses a similar concept in Étienne Balibar

and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities

(London: Verso, 1991).

[9] All quotes from a lecture by

Jacques Rancière

in 2010, printed in German translation in ak 555, November 19, 2010. The

English translation is available at:

http://wrongarithmetic.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/ranciere-racism/

[10] Blood & Honour is a neo-Nazi music promotion network and political

group founded in the United Kingdom in 1987. Combat 18 was founded in

1992 as its militant arm.

[11] In the early 90s the militant neo-Nazi scene began to organize in

groups called Freie Kameradschaften (free associations, free

camaraderie). These have no formal membership and no centralized

national structure, but keep in close contact. Over 150 such

Kameradschaften exist in Germany.

[12] The Thüringer Heimatschutz (THS) was a coordinating network of the

Freie Kameradschaften in Thuringia with up to 170 members. Its head Tino

Brandt was a paid CI for VS in Thuringia.

[13] Von Baumgärtner, Maik; Röbel, Sven; Stark, Holger, “Innere

Sicherheit: Der Brandstifter-Effekt,” Der Spiegel 45, November 5, 2012;

“

Der »Brandstifter-Effekt« des Verfassungsschutzes

,” Antifaschistisches Infoblatt, March 8, 2014.

[14] Der Spiegel, September 2014.

[15] “

Der Thüringer NSU-Untersuchungsausschuss

,” Antifaschistisches Infoblatt 101 / 4.2013, 28.01.2014.

[16] From 1994 to 2000 Helmut Roewer was president of the Thuringia

Verfassungsschutz. He is famous for his excessive leadership of the VS,

involving prostitutes and spiked helmets. In summer 2000 he had to

resign because it came to light that he financed important militant

Nazis not only with help of the ‘normal’ VS structures but also with a

system of front companies. Exactly who got the money remains unclear.

Roewer himself said some time ago that the Thuringia Verfassungsschutz

funded the neo-Nazi scene with 1.5 million DM. Today Roewer publishes

with the right wing Ares-Verlag.

[17] Von Maik Baumgärtner, Hubert Gude und Sven Röbel, “

Ermittlungspanne: Fahnder werteten NSU-“Garagenliste” nicht richtig aus

,” Spiegel Online, February 14, 2014; Wolf Wetzel, “

Die Garagenliste – die Gold Card des Nationalsozialistischen Untergrundes/NSU

,” Eyes Wide Shut, November 16, 2011.

[18] The “extremism doctrine” is the state doctrine in the Federal

Republic of Germany, which says that the democracy of the Weimar

republic (1918-1933) was destroyed by the violent extremism of the right

and the left. The term was coined in the 1970s by the VS. Before the

1970s it was called “radicalism,” but had to be changed because in the

60s “radical” became a positive term.

[19] Why would Böhnhardt and Mundlos go all the way to Heilbronn to kill

at random a police officer who was also from Thuringia? A police officer

whose immediate superior was a member of the KKK? Kiesewetter’s uncle is

a police officer involved in fascist structures himself; he said to the

police in 2007 that the murder of his niece was connected to the Ceska

murders. The police officers investigating Heilbronn concluded from

eyewitness accounts that there were six perpetrators and made composite

sketches, but those were not used in the investigation, etc.

[20] Franz Josef Strauß was a German politician. He was the chairman of

the CSU (independent party in Bavaria, but in an electoral union with

the CDU), a member of the federal cabinet in various positions and for a

long time minister-president of Bavaria. During his political career

Strauss was a controversial figure, a law-and-order politician, well

connected to the intelligence agencies and often leaning to the far

right. He was involvement in several large-scale scandals.

[21] See Daniele Ganser, Nato’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and

Terrorism in Western Europe (Cass: New York, 2004).

[22] The Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann was one of the largest paramilitary

groups in Germany. It was founded by Karl-Heinz Hoffmann in 1973 and

prohibited in 1980. Part of the group subsequently went to Lebanon to

receive military training. In September 1980 a bomb exploded at the

Oktoberfest in Munich, killing 13 people. The alleged individual

perpetrator Gundolf Köhler, who died in the explosion, was a member of

the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann.

[23] Before that, the BUA had not paid attention to the BfV. The

delegates had not even known about its department for right-wing

terrorism.

[24] Hajo Funke,

Abbruch der Untersuchung auf halber Strecke. Das vorzeitige Ende der öffentlichen Ermittlung des NSU Untersuchungsausschusses des Bundestags

[25] U.S. companies heavily involved in the conquest of Krajna.

[26] Murat Kurnaz is a Turkish citizen and resident of Germany. He was

arrested was arrested in Pakistan late in 2001 then imprisoned at

Guantanamo Bay for five years. From 2002 onwards the USA was ready to

return Kurnaz to Germany, but the German government declined that offer.

According to the German government Kurnaz had lost his residency permit

because he had left Germany for more than 6 months without notice.

Kurnaz couldn’t return to Germany until a court ruled that he still had

his residency permit because in Guantanamo he was unable to apply for an

extension of his “leave to remain.”

[27] From the final report of the parliamentary investigation committee.

Available at: http://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/146/1714600.pdf.