Theodoros Boulgarides

Memorial plaque for Boulgarides in Trappentreustraße in Munich

Theodoros Boulgarides ( Greek Θεόδωρος Βουλγαρίδης Theodoros Voulgaridis ; born June 11, 1964 in the village of Triandafyllia in Greece ; † June 15, 2005 in Schwanthalerhöhe , Munich ) was a retailer of Greek origin in Munich. He was murdered on June 15, 2005 by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) terror cell and was the seventh fatality in the series of murders of migrants across Germany . The investigative authorities suspected him, his family and those around him for months of criminal activity; Only after the NSU had exposed itself at the end of 2011 did the investigations lead to the NSU terrorists as those responsible.

Life

Theodoros Boulgarides came to Munich with his family in 1973 at the age of nine, where he graduated from high school and completed an apprenticeship as a retail salesman. He worked for Siemens and for more than ten years for Deutsche Bahn and opened a key service with a business partner in Munich-Westend on June 1, 2005 .

At the time of his death, two weeks after the store opened, he was 41 years old. He left a wife and two daughters.

Assassination and Investigations

Theodoros Boulgarides was killed on June 15, 2005 in his shop in Munich-Westend with three headshots, similar to an execution. The perpetrators used the same weapon as the other eight victims of the NSU terrorist cell with a migration background, a Czech Česká 83 . The local tabloid press wrote after the murder: "The Turkish mafia struck again". The picture newspaper headlined on 20 June 2005, "the trail of the killer leads to Istanbul". It was the only one of the murders from the NSU series that was committed on a Greek migrant.

Boulgarides had divorced his wife Yvonne shortly before his death. The widow and her two daughters were interrogated by the police, as were relatives, friends and acquaintances of the family. They were asked about any contacts Theodoros Boulgarides had with drug dealers, the Turkish mafia, prostitution rings, Internet crime, sponsors and arms dealers. The daughters were asked if their father had sexually abused them. The widow was at times suspected of having killed her husband or had her killed. The co-owner of the locksmith was repeatedly asked whether Boulgarides was addicted to sex or games.

According to the family lawyer Angelika Lex , hundreds of witnesses were questioned, but not on a possible right-wing extremist background: “This topic simply does not appear in the investigation files. And that is actually completely unimaginable if I have such a series of murders against people of non-German origin ”. Only after the self-exposure of the NSU and the subsequent extended suicide of the two main perpetrators, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt , and after Beate Zschäpe , the third member of the terror cell, had sent confessional videos, did the right-wing terrorist background of the crime become known in November 2011. Yvonne Boulgarides became a joint plaintiff in the NSU trial against Zschäpe and alleged assistants in Munich.

Boulgarides' mother and brother moved back to Greece after the unsuccessful investigation.

Commemoration

A plaque commemorates Theodoros Boulgarides at the scene of the murder. On the tenth anniversary of his death, a commemorative event with Dieter Reiter , Joachim Herrmann and Barbara John took place in his honor .

literature

• Stefan Aust , Dirk Laabs : Homeland Security. The state and the NSU series of murders. Pantheon, Munich 2014, pp. 606–608.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Tom Sundermann: NSU Trial: A murder without a plan? In: Die Zeit , September 24, 2013.
2. ↑ Stefan Aust , Dirk Laabs : Heimatschutz. The state and the NSU series of murders. Pantheon, Munich 2014, p. 607.
3. ↑ Stefan Aust , Dirk Laabs : Heimatschutz. The state and the NSU series of murders. Pantheon, Munich 2014, p. 608.
4. ↑ The explanation in detail  ( page can no longer be called up , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the lawyer Angelika Lex on the testimony of an investigator of the criminal police in the NSU trial, October 15, 2013.  
5. ↑ Irene Anastassopoulou: The suffering of the Boulgarides family. dw.de , May 4, 2013, accessed December 7, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Thies Marsen: Ten years ago: Murder of Theo Boulgarides. ( Memento from August 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Bayerischer Rundfunk , June 15, 2015.