“Born, Raised, and Murdered in Germany”

Çetin Gültekin released a book honouring his brother and other victims of the 2020 Hanau attack. The book tour took him to St Andrews on 15 October.

On 19 February 2020, 43-year-old Tobias Rathjen murdered nine people in Hanau, a city in western Germany. After opening fire on two shisha bars, the killer returned home and shot his 72-year-old mother before turning the gun on himself. Rathjen had previously published a 24-page text online outlining his racist beliefs and sympathies for far-right conspiracies.

Four years on, co-authors Mutlu Koçak and Çetin Gültekin released Born, raised and murdered in Germany: the all-too-short life of my brother Gökhan Gültekin and the Hanau attack, a book that honours the life of Çetin’s brother who was one of the victims. The proceeds from the book go to supporting anti-racist initiatives, and the pair are using their UK book tour as a platform to raise awareness for racist violence.

“The book is my way of keeping him alive and showing others the damage that racism does,” Gültekin told The Saint. “I wanted to immortalise my brother and shock people into making sure that something like this will never happen again.” 

Gökhan and Çetin were sons of Germany’s so-called ‘Gastarbeiter’ (guest workers) recruited mainly from Turkey after the Second World War to fill the depleted West German workforce. “I was born here, I went to school here, but we were never really accepted,” Gültekin explained. He experienced racism from an early age; his classmates’ parents banned their children from visiting his home. “Racism wasn’t just something that came from neo-Nazis — it was a part of everyday life for us,” he said.

Everyday prejudice, he argued, paves the way for attacks like Hanau. “The perpetrator of the Hanau attack was the product of a climate that developed over years,” Gültekin said. The Hanau attack was not an isolated incident: In 2019, a neo-Nazi was jailed for murdering pro-immigration politician Walter Lübcke, and that same year, a gunman killed two people at a synagogue in Halle.

Hanau also exposed a deep institutionalised racism. Thirteen members of a police special unit on duty that night were later suspended for participating in a chat group that shared racist and far-right beliefs. When Gültekin challenged officials, a senior bureaucrat told him: “Just because they are Nazi policemen does not mean that they are not doing their job properly.”

The failures of the state went further. One victim, Vili Viorel Pâun, repeatedly called the police after witnessing the first attack, but his calls went unanswered. An outdated system prevented them from being transferred to another station — a flaw the police had known about for years and initially tried to cover up. 

A private investigation funded by Gültekin uncovered yet more failings. The emergency exit of the Arena Bar, where three victims had tried to escape, had been locked, allegedly on police orders, as the venue was often the target of drug raids.

The state’s neglect extended to the victims’ families. “My mother received no support from the German state,” Gültekin said. It was the Turkish Consulate that finally stepped in to offer psychological support to the bereaved mother. “It shows that victims with migrant backgrounds are often left to fend for themselves,” he added.

For Gültekin, writing was both catharsis and a form of activism. “The structures need to change,” he said. Now 46 years old, he campaigns for independent scrutiny of police forces, more diversity, and better training in dealing with racism and discrimination. “Only when we look closely and take responsibility can real change happen,” he said.

His fight comes amidst a global surge of far-right support — and Germany is no exception. In 2021, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won just over 10% of the vote. Now they are polling at over 26%, with analysts predicting major gains at the 2029 federal election. 

Racist sentiment is not confined to the fringes of German politics. When a journalist asked German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last week to clarify his hardline stance on immigration, which has seen him call for “very large-scale” deportations, he responded, “Ask your daughters.”

“Sometimes I think we’re fighting against a storm,” Gültekin admitted. “But every vigil, every conversation, every act of remembrance is a piece of resistance against forgetting.” 

Interview translated from German

Images provided by Team Gökhan