Keup Street in Cologne, home to a vibrant Turkish community, was rocked by a nail bomb attack on June 9, 2004. Victims of the bombing, which wounded 22 people, were remembered on Sunday in a high-profile ceremony. The ceremony was preceded by an apology by president of North Rhine-Westphalia state where Cologne is located while German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed the former’s sentiment.

Initially blamed on infighting among the Turkish community and other migrant communities in the area, the bombing was later found out to be the work of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which is also charged with the murders of 10 people, mostly people of Turkish descent in the early 2000s.

The bombing was the first major attack after the year 2000 targeting Turks by neo-Nazi gangs, which have been responsible for the killings of people of Turkish descent in the past as well. In 1993, five members of a family of Turkish descent were killed when far-right extremists set their home in Solingen on fire.

In an article he penned ahead of Keup Street bombing anniversary, Hendrik Wüst, president of North Rhine-Westphalia, apologized to those wrongly implicated in the bombing. "The state’s primary responsibility is to defend its citizens, yet it fell short in this (incident)," he wrote.

He acknowledged that the state failed to safeguard the public, among other things, from "undeserved" blame. "On behalf of the state government, I ask for forgiveness from those who were unfairly targeted for a long time and placed under investigation although they were actually victims," he wrote. He was referring to initial "suspects" in the bombing which included people related to the victims. Wüst’s article, published in Turkish by the website of the Hürriyet newspaper, said that media was also to blame for the aftermath of the bombing and other murders by the NSU. He pointed out derogatory term "döner killings" used by the media to describe murders that squarely blamed Turks themselves.

Steinmeier was also expected to attend the ceremony to remember the victims and for solidarity entitled "Zusammen (together) – Birlikte (in Turkish)" but authorities announced that the event was delayed when a suspicious object was found near the venue.

"We, politicians, the state and its security authorities, have long refused to acknowledge the extent of the right-wing terror whose bloody trail has been running through the country for more than 10 years. For a long time we were blind to a network that murdered, injured and robbed out of racial hatred and misanthropic Nazi ideology, although it certainly left traces. It took us far too long to recognize the connections," Steinmeier said in remarks published on German Presidency’s website before the ceremony.

"And when the time came for the investigation, the focus was on the perpetrators, and the need to hear the stories of the victims and their families and to perceive their memories was often pushed into the background. Those affected live with this memory, have to live with it. They don't have a choice whether they want to remember. And with the memories comes fear, the questions: How did the terrorists get to the crime scenes, how did they choose their victims? Who might have helped them and remained undetected? But above all: Why was the NSU network not discovered for so many years? This remains a disgrace for our country and we have to live with it. We cannot undo what has happened," he said.

The series of murders and the bombing committed by the NSU is one of the most critical cases of racist violence in Germany, not only because of the executive-style killings but also the police’s approach to the crimes. Investigators were quick to link the murders to domestic disputes within the Turkish community and some were even attributed to PKK terrorists settling scores with people who betrayed them.

Moreover, family members of victims and their friends were subject to lengthy, humiliating investigations by police and treated as potential suspects for a long time.

Even after the neo-Nazi ideology of the gang was made clear following the conviction of Beate Zschaepe, the only surviving member of the gang, the renewed investigations and trial process was subject to criticism for failing to shed light on the connections of the NSU to Germany’s domestic intelligence community. Several informants recruited by the domestic intelligence agency were accused of having prior knowledge of the NSU’s crimes, and some were even present at the scenes of crimes immediately before the murders, according to probes.

Zschaepe was sentenced to life after a Munich regional court found her guilty in 2018 of 10 counts of murders, including killing of a police officer and a citizen of Greek descent. The role of Zschaepe and the NSU in the murders were only discovered after two other members of the gang committed suicide in 2011 after a botched bank robbery in the eastern city of Eisenach. A search of their residence led authorities to the discovery of gang’s activities.

New details on NSU

German media outlets reported this week that Zschaepe’s recent testimony to federal police led to a new investigation. Spiegel reported that the police were investigating potential supporters of the NSU. Based on her statements to police last year, the investigation focused on a Swiss woman who were allegedly in relationship with Uwe Mundlos, one of the members of the NSU. The unnamed woman was linked to the Swiss neo-Nazi scene, far-right extremist groups Blood and Honor and Combat 18.

Zschaepe also spoke about the killing of policewoman Michele Kiesewetter and how the group sought more "reliable," "police issue" weapons and acquired them by killing of Kiesewetter. She also claimed that Uwe Boehnhardt, other member of the NSU, left the gang’s mark at the crime scene but authorities were unaware of their involvement in the killing.