Neo-Nazis went virtually unnoticed in their anti-immigrant murder spree in Germany, because of the anti-immigrant biases of German cops.  That’s according to a parliamentary inquiry into the killings.

The so-called National Socialist Underground group was able to murder eight Turks, a Greek, and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007, because investigators couldn’t step away from the notion that crime in the immigrant community came from fellow immigrants.

“Turks murder Turks, that seems to have been the mentality,” according to Social Democratic Party lawmaker Sebastian Edathy, who was chairman of the committee.  Edathy believes the problem resides in the racism of individual cops, but not institutional racism throughout the security services.

It wasn’t until 2011 that police found the weapon that linked the immigrant murders:  It was found after Beate Zschaepe turned herself into authorities.  Her two neo-Nazi compatriots killed themselves after a botched bank robbery.  The investigation found the cell was responsible for the murders, as well as 13 other bank robberies, and a bombing that wounded 22 people at an immigrant’s hairdressing salon in Cologne.

“A bomb attack in a street where only ethnic minorities live and work and only foreigners were targeted and were victims of this crime.  Nevertheless, authorities did not include a possibly far-right motive in their investigation, but focused only on organized crime,” said Clemens Binninger of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union who served on the committee.

Zschaepe is now on trial for her role in the killings.

The nearly 1,400 page report will debated in Parliament next month, and will contain at least 47 suggestions on how police can get their act together to fight the neo-Nazi menace.