- Date of Incident
- 19 Feb 2020
- Location
- Hanau, Germany
- Publication Date
- 02 Jun 2022
- Commissioned By
- Initiative 19. Februar
- Additional Funding
- Initiative 19. Februar, Frankfurter Kunstverein
- Collaborators
- Forensis, Initiative 19. Februar, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Anderson Acoustics, HKW - Haus der Kulturen der Welt
- Methodologies
- 3D Modelling, Audio Analysis, Ground Truth, Fieldwork, Synchronisation
- Forums
- Exhibition, Media, Parliamentary Inquiry
- Exhibitions
- Three Doors – Forensic Architecture/Forensis, Initiative 19. Februar Hanau, Initiative in Gedenken an Oury Jalloh, Three Doors at HKW — Forensic Architecture/Forensis, Initiative 19. Februar Hanau, Initiative in Gedenken an Oury Jalloh, Hanau 19. Februar 2020 – Drei Jahre Erinnerung und Aufklärung, Three Doors at WKV Stuttgart — Forensic Architecture/Forensis, Initiative 19. Februar Hanau, Initiative in Gedenken an Oury Jalloh, Erinnern heißt verändern — Hanau, 19. Februar 2020, Three Doors / Üç Kapı at Depo İstanbul — Forensic Architecture/Forensis, Initiative 19. Februar Hanau, Initiative in Remembrance of Oury Jalloh
This investigation is part of a broader project on the racist terror attack in Hanau. See also:
On 19 February 2020 in Hanau, Germany, nine people were murdered in a racist terror attack:
Ferhat Unvar
Hamza Kurtović
Said Nesar Hashemi
Vili-Viorel Păun
Mercedes Kierpacz
Kaloyan Velkov
Fatih Saraçoğlu
Sedat Gürbüz
Gökhan Gültekin
The attack, carried out by a local neo-Nazi, lasted six minutes and took place over two locations: in central Hanau, and in nearby Kesselstadt. The perpetrator then returned to his house nearby, where he fired three gunshots, killing his mother, and himself. The police only stormed the house at 3am; almost five hours after the attack.
According to the official case files, this last murder occurred sometime after 1am; while special forces officers, known as SEK, were stationed directly outside the perpetrator’s house – but they claim that they did not hear any gunshots.
A year later, in June 2021, special forces officers in Frankfurt were suspended for taking part in racist far-right group chats, and their unit was dissolved. When it was later revealed that 13 of those officers were on duty in Hanau that night, Hessen’s then-Minister-President Volker Bouffier, claimed that a possible right-wing extremist attitude doesn’t mean that police officers didn’t do their job correctly.
The perpetrator’s father, who was left alive in the house, claimed that the only shots he heard that night came from outside the house. It is known that he and his son encouraged each other in their racist worldviews, and in October 2021 he was found guilty of hate speech, for making racist insults against the families.
Forensic Architecture (FA), and its Berlin-based sister agency, Forensis, were commissioned by the victims’ families and the Initiative 19. Februar Hanau, to investigate a range of questions regarding the role of the police and the role of the father that night:
Did the father lie to the police in his statements?
How did the police operation unfold?
When did police surround the perpetrator’s house?
How could the police have failed to hear the shots?
To do this, FA/Forensis worked with acoustic engineers (Anderson Acoustics) in order to conduct a sound experiment that would recreate the gunshot sound in order to examine the father’s testimony, as well as whether, and where, police would have heard the shots. We also examined hundreds of documents from the case files, including statements by witnesses and police, as well as analysed the main visual source of information about the police actions that night: video footage from a police helicopter flying over Hanau.