The three suspected terrorist bombers arrested in Germany last week include two white, native-born Germans who converted to Islam:

Fritz (Gelowicz) came from an upper middle class background, and German media reported that he converted to Islam about 10 years ago. His mother was a doctor, his father owned a successful business, and he’s married and attends a technical college in Ulm.

“Daniel”, who like Fritz hasn’t been further identified, was known for angering his neighbors in Saarbruecken by praying loudly every three hours, but little else is know about him or “Adem”, the Turkish-born third suspect.

This was “something new, and not in a good way,” said Col. Christopher Langdon of London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. They “came from the white German population. They were very traditional German residents who converted and radicalized. These bombers were not Pakistani or Moroccan. That is raising eyebrows.”

Here’s an especially interesting observation:

…Guenther Beckstein, the interior minister in the German state of Bavaria and a conservative leader of the southern wing of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party, has called for a new law authorizing online surveillance of Islamic converts.

“Germans converting to Islam should be watched because they tend to show particular fanaticism in order to prove worthy of their new religion,” he said Thursday.

Perhaps there’s also another, complementary possibility regarding their origins and motivations.

I’m wondering just how “Islamic” Daniel and Fritz really are. In view of the history of European-born extremism during the past few decades, it may be useful to understand the extent to which their ideological provenance is (for instance) Marxist-anarchist. It’s possible they converted to Islam in search of a suitable vehicle for their pre-existing ideologies and violent leanings, and from a desire to identify with a pure Other they didn’t see in European culture.

Scratch through the Islamic green and there may be red underneath. If Europe’s anti-terror forces peel away the Koran pages from a white European Islamist they may find non-Islamic patterns and contacts which can help identify terrorist cells in the making.

After writing the above I came across a UK Times article that discusses Fritz Gelowicz’s path to Islam and the radical influences he encountered. There’s no direct claim he was a Red, but the article does say:

When the Gelowicz family moved to Neu-Ulm in 1983 it was a relatively prosperous community just across the Danube river from Ulm with its grand, towering cathedral. An American garrison was based there, with big-spending soldiers.

But when the US decided to station Pershing missiles near by the town became a hub of protest: the fledgling Green protest movement stirred up passions against Pershing and Cruise missiles and the national mood swung against America.

“Those were stormy times,” recalls Frank Dreesen who studied in Ulm in the 1980s. “They left behind an anti-American imprint on a whole generation. And then when the Americans left and took their missiles with them, Neu-Ulm suddenly became much poorer — and even more resentful.”

Fritz Gelowicz’s parents were not particularly political — his father was an engineer, his mother a doctor — but at his school, America had become Enemy No 1.

Someone wanting to construct a profile of white German Islamists would seem to have plenty of subjects to study. In 2006 some 4,000 Germans converted to Islam, and the Times article says there are about 30 German converts to Islam in the Muslim community Fritz became a part of, including several who went to Pakistan. So did Fritz, and when he came back he allegedly spent the next nine months gathering “750kg of hydrogen peroxide to make several truck bombs that would be directed at American air bases or clubs and pubs frequented by Americans.”

No doubt the German police are right to be concerned about what the others — and their mentors in Germany — are up to.

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