A research project on the NSU by Tuğsal Moğul

Ten dead in eleven years – nine people of Greek, Turkish and Kurdish origin. This is the sad balance sheet of the NSU. For years, victims with migration background were accused of being involved in organized crime – at the same time officials ruled out a right-wing extremist background to the crimes.

The crimes of the NSU ended in 2011: Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos were found dead in a burned-out mobile home, four days later Beate Zschäpe turned herself in to the police.

The largest political criminal trial after reunification tried to clarify. After five years and a total of 438 days of hearings, during which more than 700 witnesses were heard, the verdict was announced. But the questions remain:

What role does the state play in this crime complex?

It’s a German crime which cannot be solved completely. It is German contemporary history! What would have happened if the victims had had German names and the perpetrators had non-German names?

After nine months of intensive research, Tuğsal Moğul has compiled facts and statements, police reports and political statements on the NSU murder series in particular and on right-wing violence in general. In it’s intensity these facts develops an extreme effect. The truth can no longer be suppressed and downplayed. Moğul and his ensemble which sometimes acts as they are in CSI and sometimes as in a fairy tale don’t have to scold the audience at all. The events they report on speak for themselves and are always linked to a question for all of us. How did it come to this and what part does each individual have in it?

This evening, which works with a wide variety of means, which is sometimes classic documentary theater and sometimes bitter satire, which reconstructs the murders of the terrorist group and at the same time dares to predict the outcome of the trial, is transformed into a theatrical prayer for the dead. The many victims of right-wing extremist violence disappear from the news and public memories far too quickly. So now it’s up to us to commemorate them once more.

Performance rights held by Rowohlt Theater Verlag, Hamburg

The play AUCH DEUTSCHE UNTER DEN OPFERN. Ein Rechercheprojekt zum NSU von Tuğsal Moğul has been published as an e-book. More about this here.