Interior Ministry spokesman Hendrik Lörges said last week that police investigators had combed through 3,300 unsolved crimes for possible far-right connections. Further investigation is required into the 746 crimes that topped the list, he added.
Anetta Kahane, chair of the Berlin-based anti-racism NGO Amadeu Antonio Foundation, said she was “happy there are looking for the cases now, but it is really late.”
A further another 184 cases had been classified by her organisation as having probable links to far-right extremism. Most of the victims were homeless, or drunks, or people who were otherwise unable to defend themselves, she noted. “So no one cared and they were not investigated properly.”
Ms Kahane has been tracking right-wing violence since German unification in 1990.
The interior ministers of Germany’s 16 states continued their debate on pushing to ban the far-right National Democratic Party at their annual conference last week.
