Germany: 746 unsolved murder investigations reopened over possible neo-Nazi involvement

The Associated Press has reported that the German authorities will be reopening investigations into 746 unsolved cases of attempted murder or murder that have taken place since 1990. The new investigations will focus on possible connections to right-wing extremism.

The vigorous review is taking place two years after police charged immigrant criminal groups with committing a series of murders. Now it seems the murders could have been the work of a secret neo-Nazi organization.

For more than 10 years the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Underground (NSU) evaded German security forces. Nine murders of immigrants between 2000 and 2007 were recently attributed to the group, among other crimes. 

Recently it has been demonstrated that the work of the secret services and their method of assessing crimes must be reviewed. A German Interior Ministry spokesperson said the authorities have completed a preliminary of review of more than 3 300 unsolved cases of attempted murder and murder between 1990 and 2011 in which they looked for signs of possible extremist motivation. 

"For a total of 746 cases from all over Germany, clues in that direction were found," Germany Interior Ministry spokesperson Hendrik Lörges said. However, Lörges emphasized that these were just indicators that must first be investigated in more detail.   

Over the last 21 years, the German Police have classified 63 cases of killing as crimes with an ultra-right subtext. The anti-racist organization Amadeu Antonio Foundation, however, has reported 184 such cases during that same time period. 

After the reunification of Germany in 1990, the number of violent cases with a racial subtext rose sharply. Such incidents were particularly frequent in the former communist east and in impoverished regions of former West Germany.