The brown panther

On Nov. 4th 2011 the police found two bodies in a burned out caravan shot to death. Shortly after, the investigators arrested a women. However, she wasn’t arrested as a suspect in the case, but for being the last remaining accomplice in a murderous trio.
[PIC]
The terrorist trio called itself the “national socialist underground” (NSU). It had already prepared a videotape, in which the pink panther explained the task of the trio and gloated what had been achieved so far. The police confirmed the claims in its investigations, when a whole weaponry was recovered as proof of ten murder cases. Nine of which where done because of racism. In another a policewoman was killed, allegedly committed to obtain her gun. All undiscovered since the year 2000.
But why did no one recognize earlier? One reason is the large timespan between the events. Another is the distance between the crime scenes. And yet another lies in the different jurisdictions within Germany. There was not the one case but actually many cases, before an unforeseen event (the burning caravan) lifted the veil. Irritated by such incompetence, it was the public outcry that forced officials to explain themselves and their failures. Why was the police monitoring and arresting left activists, while right extremists where growing in numbers, violence and political power?
So far there are 22 “secret” agencies in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since the scandal took its toll, some the agencies are in need for another boss. Just now an independent parliamentary board of enquiry is reassessing the case and bumps into problems wherever it heads. And while they do their job the media follows suit.

• Where members of the NSU informants for one or more of the agencies?
• Did one or more of the agencies know of the NSU but didn’t share their information?
• Is there a right radical undercurrent within one or more agencies, that prevented investigations to flourish?

So far, the answers are less than satisfying. Files are erased, information held back and suddenly mysterious sources emerge, flipping the case 180 degrees. When it was claimed that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had an informant within the NSU, a sorrow research cleared the agencies name of all claims. However, just after that the Military Counterintelligence Service (it’s actually abbreviated MAD – no joke!) recovered the protocol of an interview, to engage one of the terrorists as an informant and just after that an agent of another agency remembers to have seen one of the names on a list of informants. Most ridiculous however is, that the actual photos from the actual files came to use in TV-crime series and where to be seen by an audience up to 80 mil. people. Where those pictures just accidentally used as a accessory in a film set?

I personally think the violent behaviour of the black blocks and hooligans is a greater threat than right radicals. You can ignore marching and argue against stupidity. However, looking at the NSU, and how fascists and Islamists have started to escalate each other in the recent Mohamed case, that is obviously short sighted.

PS: Sorry for the many “SPIEGEL Online”-articles. There are not enough German news agencies to provide me with English sources, and it doesn't take much brain power to sift through one database. The only other is Tagesschau.de but it has to delete some of it's content after some time so I avoided it.