Hunting in Niederthann

1972 in Niederthann. Four shots ring out. Every single one on target. The result was horrific. One seriously wounded Roma woman. One dead Roma woman, a growing baby in her belly. The assassin appeared before court but got off lightly. Everyone closed ranks: the police, the lawyers, the Catholic Church, the governing party of the Christian Social Union, in fact the whole of allegedly ‘decent’ society in the region. Nobody was interested in the victims and their nearest and dearest. To the locals they were nothing more than ‘gypsies’. Hans Woller describes the background to the case and its repercussions and paints a picture of an old-style provincial society but with the most shocking of connections to modern times. The air remains tainted and the questions simply won’t go away. Could the gunshots of Niederthann ring out again? If so, who would they hit this time, and how would society react?

This year sees another anniversary of the case – the fiftieth of the so-called ‘gypsy war’ in Niederthann. Woller’s book raises questions about the perception of a crime when clouded by layers of everyday stereotyping and casual racism. What if the victims had been the perpetrators?