From Right-Wing Violence to Racist Terror – Exploring Factors of Radicalisation

In November 2011 a racist terror group in Germany that claimed responsibility for the murder of nine migrants and one police-woman was discovered by chance. For more than thirteen years security forces had no real idea of the activities of the group, assuming that the killings were caused by criminal motives. After the existence and activities of the racist group has become known several high-ranking security and secret service officers resigned and the security apparatus is still under reconstruction.

The paper addresses the attempts by researchers to locate the factors why a terrorist group developed from a much broader racist violence-prone movement and tries to weigh up the role and actions (as well as non-actions) taken by state actors towards the extreme right in Germany in general and against the regional right-wing movement in Thuringia from which the terror cell emerged in particular. In doing so, the investigation tries to find out if in the first phase restraint by the state might have encouraged right-wing violence while in a later phase adamant decisions by public prosecutors may have contributed to a radicalisation processes resulting in racist homicide.