Germany commemorates 15 years since NSU neo-Nazi cell unmasked

Germany held memorials on Wednesday marking 15 years since the neo-Nazi NSU cell was unmasked, Turkey's state-run news agency Anadolu Agency reported.

In Zwickau, where the core trio had hidden for years, officials and civil society groups attended a central service, then a quiet gathering at a municipal memorial with flowers, candles and paper cranes.

The group came to light on Nov. 4, 2011, after two members died by suicide following a failed bank robbery in Eisenach, and the third member, Beate Zschaepe, set fire to their Zwickau flat that day.

Investigators later tied the cell to a seven-year run of racially motivated murders, bombings and robberies.

Between 2000 and 2007, the group killed eight people of Turkish origin, a Greek citizen and a German police officer, most of them small-business owners.

For years, police largely ignored racist motives and treated victims' relatives as suspects, looking instead into supposed links to organized crime.

Barbara John, the federal ombudswoman for victims and relatives, demanded financial compensation and told RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland that no other group affected by terrorism had been treated so poorly by the state.

"Compensation is necessary," John said.

John said the cases involve about 45 close relatives of those killed and roughly 40 people injured in bomb attacks, mostly targeting Turkish shops.

She suggested that the federal government or the states of Saxony and Bavaria should pay, noting the trio hid in Saxony and five of the murders took place in Bavaria.

The rights group Amadeu Antonio Foundation marked the anniversary and called for independent reviews of right-wing extremist killings across the country.

In a statement, the foundation said authorities had still not acted on a key lesson from the NSU murders and that political motives must be fully clarified.

Official statistics count 117 deaths from right-wing violence since 1990, while the foundation said its own research has documented 223 such cases.

"Political promises alone are not enough," foundation board member Timo Reinfrank said.

The NSU case sparked a nationwide debate in Germany over institutional racism and security services that were criticized for underestimating far-right extremism.

Media investigations later showed that the domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), and its regional branches had numerous informants with past contacts to NSU suspects.

Authorities maintained that they had no prior knowledge of the cell or its role in the murders.