On 9 June 2004, a

nail bomb A nail bomb is an anti-personnel explosive device containing nails to increase its effectiveness at harming victims. The nails act as shrapnel, leading almost certainly to more injury in inhabited areas than the explosives alone would. A nail ...

detonated in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, Germany, in a business area popular with

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

s from

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Twenty-two people were wounded, with four sustaining serious injuries. A barber shop was destroyed; many shops and numerous parked cars were seriously damaged by the explosion and by the nails added to the bomb for extra damage. Authorities initially excluded the possibility of a

terrorist attack Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war a ...

. The bomb, which contained more than 800 nails, was hidden in a travel compartment on a bicycle left in front of the barber shop. In November 2011, after having been accused by authorities of being responsible for a robbery in

Eisenach Eisenach () is a Town#Germany, town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia, and bordering northeastern Hesse, Hessian re ...

, the

neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...

terrorist group

National Socialist Underground The National Socialist Underground (, ), or NSU (), was a German neo-Nazi militant organisation active between 1998 and 2011, and uncovered in November 2011. Regarded as a terror cell, the NSU is mostly associated with Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böh ...

(''Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund'') released a video claiming responsibility for the Cologne bombing. The group’s main members, Uwe Böhnhardt,

Uwe Mundlos Uwe Mundlos (11 August 1973 – 4 November 2011) was a German neo-Nazi, right-wing terrorist and serial killer. Together with Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe, he formed the nucleus of the terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU), ...

, and

Beate Zschäpe Beate Zschäpe (; ; born 2 January 1975) is a German far-right extremist and a member of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), a neo-Nazi terrorist organization. In July 2018, she was sentenced to life imprisonment for numerous crimes com ...

, were also indicted with the killing of nine businessmen of Turkish and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

origin between 2000 and 2006 (the

National Socialist Underground murders The National Socialist Underground murders () were a series of Racism, racist murders by the German Neo-Nazism, Neo-Nazi terrorism, terrorist group National Socialist Underground ('; Abbreviation, abbreviated NSU). The NSU perpetrated the attack ...

) 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 Diane Kruger (; Heidkrüger; ; born 15 July 1976) is a German actress. Early in her career, she gained worldwide recognition and received the Trophée Chopard from the Cannes Film Festival. Kruger became known for her roles in films such as ...

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.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cologne bombing 2004 crimes in Germany Bombing, 2004 Anti-Muslim violence in Europe Crime in North Rhine-Westphalia Neo-Nazi attacks in Germany June 2004 in Germany Terrorist incidents in Germany in 2004 Building bombings in Germany Persecution of Turks in Germany

See also

References