On February 19, 2020, 43-year-old fascist Tobias Rathjen shot and killed 9 migrants in front of a bar and a shisha cafe in Hanau, Hessen. The motives of the assassin had previously been made clear in a disgusting hate pamphlet in which he explained and justified his fascist and racist world view, which was the basis for his actions.
In the subsequent investigations into the Hanau attack, which were conducted by the families, friends and activists around the "Initiative 19. February Hanau", numerous "mishaps" and "scandals" were revealed, which facilitated this massacre and caused even more victims. In this context, we should not speak of a state failure, but rather of typical characteristics of this murderous system. These incidents reach far before the actual crime and begin with the fact that the fascist assassin was able to arm himself legally, took part in shooting training in Slovakia and posted a website online in which he called for acts of fascist violence. An emergency exit in the shisha cafe in question was also sealed off by the police before the attack in order to prevent people from escaping during their regular raids on the cafe. Another example is that 13 of the 19 special police officers deployed in Hanau are themselves members of fascist chat groups or that the father of the fascist murderer was able to terrorize the victims' relatives for years. The list goes on and on. Further information can be found on the website of the Initiative 19. February Hanau.
The committee of inquiry into this attack, in which 9 people lost their lives, has now been closed in the state parliament. It was the relatives and friends of the victims who forced this committee of inquiry on the German state in the first place through their struggle. Now this parliamentary committee of inquiry has written down on 642 pages what according to them were "omissions". At no point, however, is there any mention of political or personal consequences. Nobody in the bourgeois state is taking responsibility for what happened. On the contrary, some were able to carry on with their jobs or were even promoted. For example, Jürgen Fehler, then head of the police department in the responsible area. Not only did he remain in office despite obvious mistakes, he was also able to transfer to the riot police in 2023 without any problems. His boss at the time, Roland Ullmann, head of the South Hessen Police Headquarters, was even promoted to Hessian Police President by the Minister of the Interior, Peter Beuth. To this day, these two high-ranking police officers have not issued a single word of apology or even attempted to make contact with the victims' families. This also applies to the Minister of the Interior Beuth.
Thus the Hanau case remains a lesson for the people of this country. Clarification and justice for crimes committed against us by German imperialism and its henchmen, whether in police uniform or in the form of fascists, will not be clarified by this murderous state itself. Their committees of inquiry do not serve the purpose of clarification, but are organs of cover-up, relativization and blame-shifting. As for all other victims of state and fascist violence, the following must also be said for the nine victims of Hanau: Gökhan Gültekin, Sedat Gürbüz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Hamza Kurtović, Vili Viorel Păun, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar and Kaloyan Velkov will remain forever unforgotten in the hearts of the people. There can only be enlightenment and justice in the fight against this state.
