Neo-Nazis Suspected in Long Wave of Crimes, Including Murders, in Germany

Two main suspects in the crimes are dead, apparently suicides. Another surrendered to the police, and a fourth person was arrested Sunday.

Much of the evidence on the group came from the wreckage of an apartment here in eastern Germany where several of the suspects had been living. In a scene that seemed torn from a suspense thriller, an explosion and fire on Nov. 4 gutted the apartment, apparently an effort by the suspects to cover their tracks. But the police were able to recover a likely murder weapon, along with a gruesome 15-minute propaganda video and other evidence.

The newsmagazine Der Spiegel published still images from the video, including of the bloody bodies of several victims of what became known as the döner murders — a reference to the fact that some of the victims were foreign-born food vendors who worked at döner kebab stands.

The case sent shudders through German society, which has struggled for decades to put the country’s Nazi era behind it. The scope of violence ascribed to the neo-Nazis drew comparisons with the left-wing terrorists of the former Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

The killings are signs of “a new form of right-wing-extremist terrorism,” the country’s interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, said at a news conference in Berlin on Sunday. Speaking to reporters in Leipzig on Sunday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said the crimes revealed “structures that we never imagined