Last updated 5. March 2025 | Sprecherinnen

WE REMEMBER ENVER ŞIMŞEK! 20 years ago today, Enver Şimşek was shot dead by the NSU terrorists Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt. The right-wing extremist terrorist group “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) murdered 10 people over 11 years, 9 of whom had a migrant background. As with many other murders in the series, investigators long assumed that the Şimşek case was linked to drug or mafia crime.
The other victims of the series of murders were Abdurrahim Özüdoğru, Süleyman Taşköprü and Habil Kılıç (2001), Mehmet Turgut (2004), İsmail Yaşar and Theodoros Boulgarides (2005), Mehmet Kubaşık and Halit Yozgat (2006) and police officer Michèle Kiesewetter (2007).
To this day, the inadequate investigation into the failures of the security authorities has been criticized. In addition to falsely suspecting the victims and ignoring clear indications of a right-wing extremist motive, the trial itself continued to focus exclusively on Zschäpe and close aides, while other possible supporters remained unidentified. Structural racism is also evident in the general way the press dealt with the series of murders by not questioning the police’s approach, instead casually referring to the murders as “kebab murders”. Even 20 years after the first murder by the NSU, many questions remain unanswered.