Once more on the Keupstraße, and on the ideology of Uwe Mundlos

The first witness today was another victim of the nail bomb attack of 9 June 20004 in the Keupstraße in Cologne. He worked in the hairdresser’s in front of which the bomb was placed. He suffered several injuries to his head, arm and leg as well as damage to his eardrums – he was spared from even more serious injuries by the fact that someone was standing between him and the bomb. He still suffers from psychological injuries, is still brought back to the explosion every time there is a loud noise like a door falling shut. Like many others, he related that German agencies had not done anything to help him cope with the consequences of the attack.

The next witness was a good friend of Uwe Mundlos‘ from school who witnessed how Mundlos developed into an open Nazi. Former favorite music act Udo Lindenberg was replaced by the “Böhsen Onkelz” and other “right rock”, such as the “Kanak song” spreading hatred against Turks (including lyrics such as “Put them in the dungeon or put them in a concentration camp, send them into the desert, but finally get rid of them. Kill their children, rape their women, destroy their race, instill dread in them”), Mundlos wore the usual bomber jacket and combat boots, later clothing reminiscent of an SS uniform. Beginning in the seventh or eighth grade, he began to talk positively about the Third Reich. In his room, he hung Nazi flags and played recordings of speeches by Hitler and Goebbels.

According to the witness, Mundlos was, already in his youth, an agitator, “almost immovable” in his opinions, cold and without any mercy. Roughly in the tenth grade, he had programmed a computer game in which the player could “shoot down” Jews.

As to Beate Zschäpe, the witness stated that he had met her towards the end of his friendship with Mundlos. She had not left a political impression, but he remembered her as “primitive”, stealing lots of stuff and forcibly taking cigarettes from Vietnamese salespeople. Members of the group had also been on the “hunt for left wingers”.

Uwe Mundlos had already known a lot about going underground, about dragnet investigations and the like. One of his favorite TV series had been “Pink Panther” – which the NSU later used as a basis for the repugnant video with which it claimed responsibility for its crimes.
It was apparent that the witness was honestly trying to remember as many details as possible and succeeded in putting himself back into the situations back then. He often related specific details and used those to characterize specific situations – something which makes for a particularly believable witness statement. His statement thus stands in marked contrast to those of Nazi witnesses who, in order to protect themselves and the accused, do not at all try to remember any salient details.

The Zschäpe defense tried above all to attack his statement that Zschäpe had seemed primitive and had stolen a lot – hardly something which will be at the center of the court’s judgment.
The statement has above all shown that the ideology of Mundlos and his friends developed over a period of time. The dreams of annihilation already found early on in music and video games later and later in the self-made “Pogromly” game became reality with the NSU murders. The fact that no one intervened in this development, even though it was obvious for parents, school officials and other agencies, raises further questions.