Germany: More proof of ties between NSU murderers and KKK

The Berlin-based daily TAZ reports that a possible link between the perpetrators of a series of neo-Nazi murders from 2000 -2007 throughout the country and the German branch of the Ku-Klux-Klan is the fact that the address book of one of the murderers features the name of a former member of the German cell of that racist American organization. The TAZ article has revived the opinion that the neo-Nazi murderers were collaborating with the KKK.

According to German counter-intelligence, Thomas R. was one of approximately 20 members of a group calling itself the European White Knights of the Ku-Klux-Klan, which was active in Germany until 2002. He was also a leader of the right-wing radicals in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. His address, name and telephone number are on a list of contacts kept by Uwe Mundlos, one of the three members of the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU), who murdered at least 10 people, most of them immigrants.

TAZ reports that the counter-intelligence services acquired the address book before the series of murders was launched but paid no attention to it. Police are currently investigating some of the people listed in it on suspicion of aiding and abetting the NSU perpetrators. Several of them are already in custody. The 37-year-old ex-KKK member Thomas R. has refused to comment to the daily.

A possible link between the NSU and the German branch of the racist organization began to be debated in Germany at the start of this month when it came to light that two police officers from the state of Baden-Württemberg had also been KKK members. Both were colleagues of 22-year-old Michele Kiesewetter, the last known victim of the neo-Nazi murderers.

One of the police officers was Kiesewetter's direct superior and there is speculation as to whether he might have provided the murderers information about her movements. She was shot dead in April 2007 in Heilbronn. The perpetrators knew where she was taking her lunch break and that she had returned early from vacation. Her service weapon was found last year in the recreational vehicle in which NSU members Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos took their own lives in order to evade arrest.

Kiesewetter's previous commanding officer has resolutely rejected those suspicions. TAZ reports that detectives are investigating a possible link between the KKK and the ultra-rightists but do not consider it a "hot trail". "On the basis of the current state of the investigation there is no evidence that other organizations or persons besides the NSU members participated in this crime," responded the state prosecutor in Karlsruhe. TAZ reports that Thomas R. and the two police officers are officially listed as witnesses in the case, not as suspects.

The neo-Nazi group, which is also referred to as the Zwickau cell after the place where they hid out, was comprised of Böhnhardt, Mundlos, and Beatte Zschäpe. In addition to murdering Kiesewetter, they murdered at least nine small businesspeople of immigrant origin and were also responsible for two bomb attacks on Turkish neighborhoods in Cologne in 2001 and 2004, which resulted in more than 20 injuries. They are also responsible for a minimum of 14 bank robberies. They confessed to their crimes in a video recording which detectives discovered last fall after the group was smoked out. Zschäpe is the only member of the neo-Nazi trio left alive. She is in custody awaiting trial.