In this Nov. 9, 2011 file picture police search in the debris of a house that was set on fire and partially exploded in Zwickau, eastern Germany. For years, authorities suspected organized crime rather than racist violence; only when two suspected founding members were found dead last November after a botched bank robbery and their house was set on fire by an accomplice, did the so-called National Socialist Underground’s activities come to light. Germany’s domestic spy agency faces awkward questions and a shake-up after revelations that an official destroyed files related to a neo-Nazi group suspected of killing 10 people, mostly ethnic Turks. The case prompted the government to announce this week that the agency’s head for the past 12 years, Heinz Fromm, will take early retirement. (AP Photo/dapd Sebastian Willnow,File)GEIR MOULSON
BERLIN (AP) – The case horrified Germany, a nation where the Hitler era still casts a long shadow: a small band of neo-Nazis suspected of killing ethnic Turks and others in a seven-year terror spree, undetected by security forces until a botched bank robbery brought down the group last year.
Now, Germany’s domestic spy agency faces awkward questions about a possible cover-up after revelations that an official destroyed files related to the neo-Nazi group. The case prompted the government to announce this week that the agency’s head for the past 12 years will take early retirement.
Before he leaves, a parliamentary committee wants to question Heinz Fromm and the official responsible for the files on Thursday about whether the material was destroyed by mistake or deliberately.
The case had already proven deeply embarrassing to the agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, because of the failure to solve the killings of eight Turkish small businessmen and a Greek between 2000 and 2006 and a policewoman in 2007.