Film Screening: NSU: The Perpetrators

German History X

In 1990, Jena’s economy is the worst it’s been since World War II. Many young people in East Germany drift from school into unemployment, witness their parents’ insecurity, and feel the impotence of the police and state. They feel disoriented, unloved, and aggrieved, and begin to consider themselves second-class citizens failed by the state.

One of them is Beate Zschäpe, who falls under the spell of right-wing extremists. Her sense of powerlessness and instability are shared by thousands of young people in East Germany. She befriends Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, and submerged in a neo-Nazi subculture, they become organized and radicalized.

Because of “Nazi Comrades” who are informants for the domestic intelligence services, their actions are known to the police, but still they’re not arrested. After an unsuccessful bomb attack, and the discovery of explosives in a garage rented by Zschäpe, the three neo-Nazis, now an inseparable trio, go underground at the end of 1998. What follows is the most serious, most shocking killing spree in German post-war history.

Christian Schwochow, Germany, 2015/16, 95 min