2004 Cologne bombing

On 9 June 2004, a nail bomb detonated in Cologne, Germany, in a business area popular with immigrants from Turkey. Twenty-two people were wounded, with four sustaining serious injuries. A barber shop was completely destroyed; many shops and numerous parked cars were seriously damaged by the explosion and by the nails added to the bomb for extra damage.[2] Authorities initially excluded the possibility of a terrorist attack.[3] The bomb, which contained more than 800 nails, was hidden in a travel compartment on a bicycle left in front of the barber shop.[4]

2004 Cologne bombing
Part of Terrorism in Germany
Keupstraße
Cologne
Cologne (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Cologne
Cologne (Germany)
Location22 Keupstraße, Cologne, Germany
Date9 June 2004
TargetTurks
Attack type
Bombing
Weaponsnail bomb
Deaths0
Injured22
PerpetratorNational Socialist Underground
MotiveIslamophobia
Racism
Xenophobia
Anti-Turkism[1]

In November 2011, after having been accused by authorities of being responsible for a robbery in Eisenach, the neo-Nazi terrorist group National Socialist Underground (Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund) released a video claiming responsibility for the Cologne bombing.[5][6]

The group’s main members, Uwe Böhnhardt, Uwe Mundlos, and Beate Zschäpe, were also indicted with the killing of nine businessmen of Turkish and Greek origin between 2000 and 2006 (the National Socialist Underground murders) and the murder of Michèle Kiesewetter in 2007. Böhnhardt and Mundlos died in a murder-suicide, leaving only Zschäpe to be charged (among other charges) for the attempted murder of 23 people in the Cologne bombing, in the NSU trial.

The events of the 2017 film In the Fade, starring Diane Kruger as a German woman whose Kurdish husband and their child were killed in a nail bomb attack by Neo-Nazis, was inspired by the 2004 bombing.[7]

See also

References
  1. Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Neo-Nazi pamphlets target Cologne area hit by racist nail bomb | DW | 07.06.2019". DW.COM. Retrieved 2020-12-06.
  2. Kölner Stadtanzeiger article
  3. Kölner Stadtanzeiter: Stochern im Nebel, 30 July 2004
  4. Truscheit, Karin (15 March 2015). "NSU-Opfer: Damit das alles einen Sinn ergibt". Frankfurter Allgemeine (in German). Retrieved 15 August 2018.
  5. Germany, SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg. "Braune Zelle Zwickau: Neonazi-Terroristen hinterließen Geständnis auf DVD - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Panorama". Retrieved 23 December 2016.
  6. "SPIEGEL.TV - Web-TV der SPIEGEL Gruppe". Retrieved 23 December 2016.
  7. Rodek, Hanns-Georg (26 May 2017). "Fatih Akin in Cannes: Was Aus dem Nichts über uns verrät". Die Welt. Retrieved 15 August 2018.

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