Çağan Varol

Themes

The NSU complex and memory politics

The NSU complex, the failure to fully investigate it, and struggles over remembering the victims, including the 2004 Keupstraße attack, the Birlikte events and the planned documentation centre.

0214 entries2015–2026All themes

Publications

All publications
2026 Book

Rassifizierte Topographien. Über die Problematisierung von Migration im städtischen Raum

Traces how a migrant shopping street in Cologne has been stigmatised since the recruitment stop of 1973, ethnographically and genealogically, following the official and media readings of “Brennpunkte” and “Parallelgesellschaften” and the counter-narratives of the street’s migrant residents. Using the 2004 attack by a right-wing terrorist group and the investigations that followed, it shows how social work, security agencies and urban development took part in producing a racialised topography. Appears in the Urban Studies series; according to the publisher due on 28 December 2026, about 470 pages.

2023 Report

Dokumentationszentrum für die Opfer rassistischer Gewalt 1999–2007ff. Bundesweite Bestandsaufnahme von Aufarbeitungsaktivitäten und Einbindung von Betroffenenperspektiven (Teilbericht A, B, C)

Nationwide survey of activities to come to terms with the NSU crimes and of how to include the perspectives of those affected in a future documentation centre, drawing among other things on qualitative interviews with 7 victims and relatives and 25 people from their support networks. Expert report no. 1 for the feasibility study of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb), published in its annex on 29 February 2024.

Writing

All writing
18 June 2024 analyse & kritik Article

Die Steinmeier-Show

Critique of the 2024 Birlikte event marking 20 years since the NSU nail-bomb attack in Cologne; politicians staged solidarity while survivors were sidelined.

14 April 2020 kritisch-lesen.de Review

Keinen Dank, sondern Respekt!

Review of Kutlu Yurtseven and Rossi Pennino’s history of the Cologne hip-hop group Microphone Mafia, including their anti-fascist work and response to the NSU attacks.

Memory work & observation

More on the NSU complex

Talks & media

All talks and media items
24 June 2025 Umkämpftes Erinnern in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft, Hochschule München Conference paper

Erinnerung an die Opfer des Nagelbombenanschlags auf der Keupstraße – Zwischen unternehmerischen Stadtpolitiken und der Entpolitisierung von aktivistischen Praxen

Paper in Panel 2, “Gedenken im öffentlichen Raum als Praxis der Problematisierung”, at the conference of the German Sociological Association (DGS) sections “Soziale Probleme und soziale Kontrolle” and “Migration und ethnische Minderheiten”.

12 October 2021 kritisch-lesen.de, no. 61 Interview

„Man hat rein gar nichts gelernt“

Interview by Johanna Bröse in the issue “NSU – Zehn Jahre nach der Selbstenttarnung” on the Keupstraße nail bombing, the police and media treatment of the victims, the NSU tribunals, the Herkesin Meydanı initiative and institutional racism.

26 June 2021 Antifaschistische Linke International (A.L.I.), Waageplatz, Göttingen Panel

Solidarität muss Praxis werden

Guest in an open-air discussion opening the campaign “Die Bürokratie des Bösen – Niemand muss Ausländerbehörde sein!”, on the NSU, neo-Nazis in police and domestic intelligence, Halle, Hanau and responses to racism.