On June 9, 2004, a nail bomb exploded in broad daylight in Keupstraße in Cologne-Mülheim. Keupstraße was and is considered one of Cologne’s shopping and residential centers for people with international , mostly Turkish or Kurdish history.
The attack injured 22 people, four of them seriously. The property damage amounted to many hundreds of thousands of euros. In 2011, the right-wing terrorist network “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) claimed responsibility for this crime. Until then, the authorities were investigating only the victims of the bomb, some of whom were seriously injured. They turned victims into perpetrators. The media and the public flanked these actions by defaming the street as riddled with “criminal foreigner milieus.” The racist attack thus found its continuation in racist investigations and media coverage.
In the press excerpt of the dpa it said on 07.08.2006: “There were however contrary to differently stating medium reports from the weekend at present no new realizations that the assassination is connected with a power struggle of rival protection money extortionists. However, ‘possible involvement in relation to protection money’ had been included in the investigation from the outset, Wolf said.” [der Oberstaatsanwalt].
With the Cologne nail bomb attack, the NSU pursued the goal of killing and injuring as many allegedly non-German people as possible and destroying their nearby businesses and homes.
In Cologne, the initiative “Keupstraße is everywhere“, among others, is working on the clarification of the crime – and how its uncovering was hindered and even covered up by the police and authorities.
From the anti-racist work in Cologne, the alternative Research and clarification of the crime by the NSU tribunal, the initiative for a memorial in memory of the victims emerged. “Herkesin Meydani – A Place for All!” is a place of remembrance, which was built after a long denied Resolution of the Cologne City Council now actually in the near future at the beginning of the Keupstraße realized will.
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Books:
Aktionsbündnis ‘NSU-Komplex auflösen’ (ed.), Tribunals – “NSU-Komplex auflösen”, 2021 (via: https://www.assoziation-a.de/buch/Tribunale_NSU).
The NSU-VS Complex. Where does the National Socialist Underground begin – where does the state end? 2013 (via: https://www.unrast-verlag.de/ebooks/der-nsu-vs-komplex-421-443-detail).
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Online sources:
http://www.nsu-tribunal.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/NSU-Tribunal_Anklageschrift_DE_V3.pdf, call 1.3. 2022
http://keupstrasse-ist-ueberall.de/der-anschlag/, call 1.3. 2022
http://keupstrasse-ist-ueberall.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/WolfWetzel_NagelbombenanschlaginKoeln2004.pdf, call 1.3. 2022
http://www.nsu-tribunal.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Tribunal_NSU-Komplex_aufloesen_Programm_web-1.pdf, call 1.3. 2022