Holger G., who was arrested in November, was one of a network of people who allegedly helped the Zwickau neo-Nazi cell, suspected of murdering at least 10 people. Unlike the one surviving member of the cell, he is talking to investigators. His statements provide a chilling insight into the trio's activities during their time in the underground.

On May 19, 2011, Holger G.'s past caught up with him. Three old acquaintances stood in front of his home, a clinker-brick and gable-roofed house in the small town of Lauenau in Lower Saxony. They were Uwe Bohnhardt, Uwe Mundlos and Beate Zschape, a trio of neo-Nazis now known as the Zwickau cell, who are believed to have murdered at least 10 people between 2000 and 2007. They had simply turned up out of the blue, and needed G.'s help once again.

This time, as the 37-year-old forklift driver would later tell investigators, they wanted him to get Bohnhardt a new passport. Bohnhardt knew Holger G. from the neo-Nazi scene in the eastern German city of Jena, and had been using his identity for years. Because the two men looked alike, G. had furnished his friend with a whole host of official documents from 2001 onward, including identity cards, health insurance cards, a driver's license and an automobile association membership card. Even so, when they turned up last May, Holger G. was reluctant to help. But the trio said there was no going back, pointing out that, since he'd been helping for 10 years, it was too late for second thoughts. So Holger G. let them talk him into helping again.

Bohnhardt cropped G.'s hair short, gave him his black-framed glasses with the oval lenses, and the four of them drove to a photo studio in Rodenberg, 6 kilometers (4 miles) away. There Bohnhardt and Mundlos waited outside while G. -- made to look like Bohnhardt and wearing a check shirt -- had his picture taken in front of a light-blue background. The eight biometric passport photos cost €12 ($15). Beate Zschape paid. "They were just regular customers," the owner of the photo studio recalls. "There was nothing strange about them, nothing at all."

Things continued to go smoothly when they reached the passport office on that Thursday in May. Accompanied by Beate Zschape, Holger G. applied for and was issued with passport number C25JCHFH29, valid through May 2021. According to the document, the holder is 1.89 meters (6 feet 2 inches) tall with blue-gray eyes.