He promised the families: "I want to help ensure that their suffering continues to be recognized and acknowledged. And that it will be cleared up, where there have been mistakes and failures, that it will be talked about and if necessary also argued, what we have to learn from it!"
Ten murders between 2000 and 2007 attributed to neo-nazi trio. Gauck recalled in his funeral, according to the redemanuscript, that his predecessor christian wulff had already invited relatives of the murdered to bellevue castle in november 2011. At that time, it had just become known that the murders and attacks on nine small businessmen of turkish and greek origin and on a policewoman were the work of the zwickau neo-nazi terrorist cell. For many years, the right-wing terrorist background had not been uncovered. Instead, the environment of the victims was suspected.
Before the meeting, the cancellation of one of the members had caused disgruntlement. The sister of a murdered man from hamburg wanted to come only with a lawyer, but the prasidialamt refused with reference to the limited number of participants. In an open letter, aysen taskopru wrote: "mr. Gauck, my brother is only important to you because the NSU is a political issue in germany. What do they want to change about our suffering? Do you think it helps me if you are affected??" There were several cancellations, also for health reasons.