Uwe Mundlos

Uwe Mundlos (11 August 1973 - 4 November 2011) was a German

Mundlos was born and grew up in the East-German city of Jena. His brother was disabled. His mother was a saleswoman. His father, Siegfried Mundlos, was a mathematician at the University of Jena, and since the early 1990s has been a Professor of Computer Science at the Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena.^[1]

The Mundlos family home was a

Mundlos immersed himself further into the neo-Nazi scene, attending skinhead concerts, and taking part in memorial marches for Nazi politician Rudolf Hess as well as a National Democratic Party of Germany demonstration. Furthermore, he had friends who were members of the neo-Nazi group Blood & Honour. Mundlos was also active in a prison support groups for incarcerated Nazis. From 1995 he was part of the core of the Anti-Antifa group in East Thuringia and together with friends Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe.

In a right-wing extremist magazine, Mundlos published articles which he signed with the pseudonym "Uwe UngeZOGen" (which translates approximately to "Uwe Unruly" in English). The capitalisation of the letters "ZOG" is a reference the

On 29 June 1995, the Amtsgericht Chemnitz sentenced Mundlos to 20 days in prison and a fine of 30 DM for "producing and keeping symbols of unconstitutional organisations". On 1 November 1996, Mundlos was banned from the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial because he had entered the grounds together with Uwe Böhnhardt wearing Sturmabteilung (SS) uniforms.^[5]

It is alleged that Mundlos had a network of nation-wide contacts with neo-Nazi groups as early as the mid-1990s.^[6]

Military service

Between 5 April 1994 and 31 March 1995, Uwe Mundlos was a conscript in the German Bundeswehr.^[1] There he continued his right-wing extremist activities and attracted attention for singing right-wing extremist songs, amongst other things. His company commander requested a disciplinary arrest of seven days, because Mundlos "carried a personal business card with the head of Adolf Hitler and a picture of his deputy Rudolf Hess". Mundlos was taken into custody, and officers searched his flat, finding 15 cassettes of right-wing extremist music and leaflets from the NPD.^[7] However, in the opinion of the Truppendienstgerichts Süd in Kassel, this did not constitute "either a criminal offence or the elements of a service offence."^[8] Mundlos was subsequently released.

At the same time, the

Mundlos was eventually promoted to the rank of

Uwe Mundlos and his friends Böhnhardt and Zschäpe had been active in neo-Nazi activities since the mid-1990s. On 9 November 1996, the memorial day of Kristallnacht, when multiple hundreds of Jews were murdered, hand axes, batons, a throwing star, knives, a BB gun and a Nazi poster were found in their car.^[1]

The following events are attributed to Mundlos and his friends:

• 6 October 1996 - a wooden box with a swastika painted on it, containing a dummy bomb, was found in the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld.
• At the end of 1996 and the start of 1997 several dummy bombs were addressed to the Jena police and the editorial office of the Thüringische Landeszeitung.
• 2 September 1997 - children found a suitcase in Jena's Theatre Square on which two swastikas had been painted. The suitcase contained a small amount of TNT. The bomb was not capable of detonation.^[5]
• 26 December 1997 - walkers at the memorial for Magnus Poser in Jena's North Cemetery discovered a suitcase with a swastika painted on it, which was attributed to Mundlos and his friends in retrospect.^[11]

On 26 January 1998 Thuringian authorities searched Mundlos', Böhnhardt's and Zschäpe's apartments and their shared garage. In the garage the police found four live pipe bombs, 14 kg of TNT and Nazi propaganda.^[12] The plasticine found in the garage was identical to the plasticine used in the Theater Square bomb. On 28 January, an arrest warrant for Mundlos was issued.^[13] In 2003, the public prosecutor's office closed the investigation against Mundlos, citing the statute of limitations, although this had not yet been reached. The Jena District Court had ordered a search in 2000, which interrupted and restarted the statute of limitations.^[14]

The National Socialist Underground

Mundlos, Böhnhardt and Zschäpe had gone underground on 26 January 1998, two days before the arrest warrant was issued. Until 2011, they relied on a network of old acquaintances from the neo-Nazi scene who supported them with flats, money, weapons and official documents.^[15] For example, Mundlos, nicknamed "Max", used the identity card of Max-Florian B in order to apply for a fraudulent passport.^[16] Despite an extensive manhunt by Thuringia police and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the trio could not be captured.^[1]

After going underground, Mundlos, Böhnhardt and Zschäpe agreed to commit to a campaign of "assassinating 'enemies of the German people' such as residents of Turkish origin as well as representatives of the ruling order, such as police officers", in order to prepare for a change in the political system.^[1] The terror trio committed the "largest and bloodiest series of crimes since the attacks of the Red Army Faction".^[17]

Between 9 September 2000 and 6 April 2006, Mundlos and Böhnhardt murdered eight small-business owners of Turkish or Greek origin. The January 2001 explosive attack of a supermarket was also attributed to the pair. On 9 June 2004, they detonated a nail bomb in Keupstraße, Cologne, which injured 22 people. In April 2007, they shot and killed policewoman Michèle Kiesewetter in Heilbronn, as well as seriously injuring her colleague. Between 6 October 1999 and 4 November 2011, they committed 15 bank robberies around Germany.

In their crimes the pair used mountain bikes and rented campervans.^[18]

Suicide in Eisenach

On 4 November 2011, Böhnhardt and Mundlos robbed a bank in the town of

References