Beate Zschäpe

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Beate Zschäpe (born January 2, 1975 in Jena as Beate Apel ; aliases : Susann Dienelt , Mandy Pohl , Bärbel Bucilowski and others) is a German right-wing extremist and a member of the Nazi underground terror group . As the main defendant in the NSU trial , she was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Munich Higher Regional Court on July 11, 2018 as an accomplice in the murder of ten people and for other actssentenced. The court determined the particular gravity of the guilt . The judgment is final.

Life

Origin and childhood

As a citizen of the GDR, Zschäpe's mother studied dentistry at the Medical and Pharmaceutical University in Bucharest until 1976 . She was unable to do the job she had learned because of an allergy. From August 1976 she was employed as an accountant at VEB Carl Zeiss combine in Göschwitz near Jena. At the same time she studied economics at the Open University and graduated as an engineering economist . During the system transformation after the end of the GDR and reunification , she lost her position at VEB Carl Zeiss in 1991.

Beate Zschäpe never met her father. According to her mother, he is said to have been a Romanian fellow student , worked for a time as a dentist in North Rhine-Westphalia and died in 2000. Beate Apel grew up in Jena in simple circumstances and was often in the care of her grandmother. Her mother divorced twice. The daughter always took the name of her mother's new partner. In the first 15 years of her life, she moved six times in and around Jena. In 1991, after the tenth grade, she left the state school "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe" in the Jena district of Winzerla and began working as a painter's assistant as part of a job creation scheme . From 1992 to 1996 she did an apprenticeship as a gardener specializing in vegetable growing .

Radicalization in the neo-Nazi scene

As a teenager, Zschäpe first belonged to the left-wing punk scene and in 1990 had a punk friend with whom she committed a number of thefts of alcohol and cigarettes, among other things. In 1989 or 1990 she met Uwe Mundlos and began a relationship with him that was so strong in September 1990 that Mundlos' father opened an account for her. From 1991 onwards, Zschäpe and Mundlos visited the newly established winegrowers' club , a community-run youth center in the Winzerla prefabricated building district of Jena , and, according to the sociologist Matthias Quent , “shaped” the “youth culture” of this facility. There they met Uwe Böhnhardt , among others , and formed a neo-Nazi youth clique. With three other neo-Nazis, among them Ralf Wohlleben , they formed the Jena comradeship . Zschäpe took part in nationwide marches of the neo-Nazi scene and actions of the Anti-Antifa East Thuringia and the successor organization Thuringian Homeland Security . There were also contacts to the neo-Nazi network Blood and Honor .

Also in the 1990s, Zschäpe registered political demonstrations in Jena ("To preserve Thuringian identity, against the internationalization of the EC"). She took part in the hunt down of left-wing youths and in blackmailing Vietnamese cigarette dealers.

After several dummy bombs and incapable explosive devices were found in Jena in 1996 and 1997, the police searched the apartments of Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt on January 26, 1998. In Zschäpe's apartment, next to machetes and a rifle, there was also a handmade board game called Pogromly , a monopoly for neo-Nazis. Four pipe bombs with around 1.4 kilograms of TNT were found in a garage rented by Zschäpe . Arrest warrants were issued against Mundlos, Böhnhardt and Zschäpe.

Immersion and participation in the National Socialist underground

After the search, Zschäpe went underground together with Böhnhardt and Mundlos . A few weeks earlier constitutional protection had considered it as V-wife to get involved, but eventually aside for alleged drug use it.

In 1999, Zschäpe gave right-wing extremist lawyer Hans Günter Eisenecker a power of attorney signed by her to apply to the authorities to inspect files.

Self-exposure through apartment explosion and escape

In November 2011, Beate Zschäpe destroyed the last apartment of the NSU trio in Zwickau in order to destroy traces (photo after partial demolition).

After their accomplices Böhnhardt and Mundlos had committed suicide after a failed bank robbery in Eisenach on November 4, 2011, an explosion occurred on the same day in a residential building at Frühlingsstrasse 26 in the Weißenborn district of Zwickau . There the trio had lived in a conspiratorial apartment for three and a half years . According to the arrest warrant, Zschäpe spilled “a flammable liquid and ignited it”, which led to a deflagration . The apartment building was badly damaged and later had to be demolished. Numerous weapons were found in the rubble, including the weapons used in the serial murders of migrants and the weapons used in the Heilbronn police murder of the policewoman Michèle Kiesewetter. In addition, a laptop was seized on which, among other things, There were drafts of the " Paulchen-Panther " video in which the National Socialist Underground confessed to its actions.

Probable escape route Zschäpes reconstructed by the investigating authorities

The investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice accused Zschäpe of having set the building on fire "to prevent evidence from being found". Before Zschäpe escaped from the house, she gave her cats to a neighbor, but left a bedridden elderly woman in the burning house. One day later she sent at least twelve envelopes from Leipzig with the confession video to newspapers, mosque associations, political parties and a right-wing publisher. In doing so, she ensured that her group and their deeds were suddenly known. She informed the parents of Mundlos and Böhnhardt of their death by telephone, but not her mother or grandmother, with whom she had broken off contact in the underground. Over the next few days, Zschäpe traveled through various cities in eastern and northern Germany to Bremen , visiting Eisenach twice, Hanover and Halle (Saale) each time , and possibly had contact with NSU supporters.

Detention, Investigation and Prosecution

On November 8, 2011, Beate Zschäpe tried to call the police with "Hello, this is Beate Zschäpe". She is the one who has been searched for "for days" and which is why the whole city is cordoned off. However, the policeman on the other end of the line did not recognize the caller and replied that he was not aware of any such information. Hours later, Zschäpe and her lawyer appeared in person at the police in Jena. Since November 8, 2011, Zschäpe was in custody . On November 11, 2011, the Federal Prosecutor's Office took over the investigation into suspected membership in a terrorist organization .

On November 8, 2012, one year after the series of murders became known, the federal prosecutor brought charges against Zschäpe and four alleged supporters. She was accused of “being a founding member of the 'NSU' ... in the murder of eight fellow citizens of Turkish and one fellow citizen of Greek origin , the assassination attempt on two police officers in Heilbronn as well as the attempted murders by the bomb attacks of the 'NSU' in Cologne's old town and to have participated in Cologne-Mülheim ”. According to the indictment, the "National Socialist Underground (NSU)" was "a group consisting of three members with equal rights", which committed its acts "in a coordinated division of labor". Zschäpe had the "indispensable task" of "giving the existence of the terrorist organization the appearance of normality and legality", among other things by maintaining an inconspicuous facade at the "respective places of residence" and the common apartment "as a place of retreat and action center" have secured. In addition, she was "largely responsible for the group's logistics". For example, she managed the money from the robberies and rented mobile homes several times, including a murder vehicle, according to the federal prosecutor's office in the 500-page indictment.

According to a " dactyloscopic status report", Zschäpe's DNA traces are said to have been found on newspaper articles about the bomb attack in Cologne and the murder of Habil Kilic. In addition, Zschäpe was accused of having "set the apartment in Zwickau on fire and thereby made himself liable to prosecution for another attempted murder of a neighbor and two craftsmen and for particularly serious arson". The police had found traces of gasoline on Zschäpe's socks.

According to the Zwickau public prosecutor's office , she was also investigated because child pornography files were found on her computer. However, this proceeding had been discontinued because the penalty for it was “probably not of considerable importance” compared to that for the offenses accused of her ( Section 154 StPO ).

In January 2013, the Munich Higher Regional Court lifted certain previously ordered communication restrictions for Zschäpe, as the NSU no longer exists and the inmates can no longer support the group.

Legal proceedings

The trial took place before the State Security Senate of the Munich Higher Regional Court since May 6, 2013. Zschäpe's defenders were Wolfgang Heer (Cologne), Wolfgang Stahl (Koblenz), Anja Sturm (Cologne) and, since July 2015, the fourth public defender Mathias Grasel (Munich). In November 2015, Grasel's colleague Hermann Borchert joined as the fifth (electoral) defender. Since then, Zschäpe has refused any contact with her old defenders (see defender crisis ). Beate Zschäpe, originally imprisoned in the Cologne-Ossendorf prison, had been in the Munich prison since mid-March 2013 . She refused an examination by the court-appointed psychiatric expert Henning Saß . The defense denies that Zschäpe was complicit in the murders, attacks and other acts of the NSU. At the beginning of the main hearing, Zschäpe made use of her right to refuse to testify.

On December 9, 2015, Zschäpe made a 53-page statement read by her fourth public defender Mathias Grasel for the first time in the NSU trial. She denied having been involved in the ten murders and two explosives attacks, and also refused membership in the NSU, which consisted only of Böhnhardt and Mundlos. Back then, Zschäpe had resigned himself underground and saw no chance of returning to bourgeois life. She confessed to having set fire to the last escape apartment in Zwickau and apologized to the victims and relatives. Her position was widely criticized as a tactical measure that left unanswered important questions, particularly for victims' relatives.

After answering further questions in writing over the course of the next few months, she read a statement in the courtroom for the first time on September 29, 2016, in which she reiterated her apology and stated that she had distanced herself from “nationalist ideas”. The observers again agreed that Zschäpe had remained formulaic and abstract and had "not explained anything", which the representatives of the co-plaintiffs in particular criticized, since Zschäpe had done nothing to improve their credibility. According to the sociologist Samuel Salzborn , their distancing from "nationalist ideas" did not mean distancing themselves from right-wing extremist ideology, since the scene from which Zschäpe came does not regard the "nation" as a positive point of reference, but rather as "the democratic, republican, enlightened nation" refused. Zschäpe's formulation is "a well-chosen cipher that will make the entire Nazi scene laugh in their sleeves". By not revealing any details about the NSU, she shows solidarity with the right-wing extremist scene.

On January 17 and 18, 2017, the psychiatrist Henning Saß presented Zschäpe's psychological report to the court, which had a decisive influence on the length of his detention. In it he described Zschäpe as "fully culpable"; there are no indications of a relevant mental disorder or of addictive alcohol consumption. Saß did not recognize a "weak personality" of the accused, whom Zschäpe had tried to describe in her previous statements. Rather, it is characterized by a willingness “to fight self-assertion, to an almost hostile perseverance and to successfully endure massive interpersonal conflicts”. Zschäpe is superior to men - which has also been confirmed by various testimonies - and has a "tendency to dominance, toughness, assertiveness". Sat recommended to the court due to ongoing danger subsequent to the sentence of preventive detention . Zschäpe's defense lawyers tried to shake these conclusions, including by declaring Zschäpe about her emotional dismay, which she was unable to show because of her previous strategy of silence. With the statement of a representative of the correctional facility in which Zschäpe was imprisoned, about her inconspicuous behavior and her financial sources, the survey of the appraiser ended on February 22nd, 2017. After Zschäpe had spoken with the psychiatrist Joachim Bauer , their new defenders Grasel and Borchert presented at the end of March In 2017, the application to hear Bauer in order to have her reduced criminal liability determined in accordance with Section 21 of the Criminal Code due to severe dependent personality disorder , which could lead to a reduction in sentence. After Bauer's rejection by the court due to concerns about partiality and the rejection of further requests for evidence, the taking of evidence ended in mid-July 2017.

In its plea on July 25, 2017, the Federal Prosecutor's Office stated that the indictment against Zschäpe had essentially been confirmed; she was a co-founder and member of the NSU terrorist organization and, as an accomplice, was responsible for their actions. Therefore, on September 12, 2017, the Federal Prosecutor's Office demanded life imprisonment with subsequent preventive detention and the determination of the particular gravity of the guilt . At the end of April 2018, the new defenders Zschäpes, Borchert and Grasel pleaded. They did not consider Zschäpe guilty of being an accomplice in the murders and attacks, but only involved in the robberies and responsible for the explosion of the last NSU apartment, and demanded a prison sentence of no more than ten years. The closing lectures ended on June 22, 2018 with the pleadings of the three former defenders; they considered Zschäpe guilty of simple arson alone and demanded her immediate release from custody.

On July 3, 2018, Zschäpe spoke her last five-minute word , in which she again apologized to the relatives of the victims, but stated that she had no further information and that she only recorded the extent of the acts during the process. She only found out about the murders and explosives attacks afterwards and disapproved of them. She distanced herself from the right-wing scene, but accepted “the opinion and sentiments of the co-defendants” and concluded with the request to the court: “Please do not judge me on behalf of something that I did not want and do.” The parents present of the NSU murder victim Halit Yozgat described Zschäpe's statement as unreasonable, since the questions of the relatives remained unanswered. Die Zeit commented that Zschäpe's attempt to paint a different image of himself as a victim was a “fantasy”; she missed her last chance.

The court sentenced her to life imprisonment on July 11, 2018 for murder, membership in a terrorist organization and aggravated arson, and determined the gravity of the guilt. In doing so, the Senate complied with the Federal Prosecutor's Office and agreed with her point of view to convict Zschäpe as an accomplice in the murders and explosives attacks of the NSU, although she was not able to prove that she had personally contributed to the crime. Against the judgment Zschäpes defenders laid the appeal of revision one, which is why initially there was no legal force. The arrest warrant was upheld and enforced due to the conviction.

On February 4, 2019 Zschäpe the consent of the Munich Higher Regional Court of which was Penitentiary Munich in the prison Chemnitz laid.

On April 21, 2020, the Munich Higher Regional Court submitted the grounds for the judgment, file number 6 St 3/12. It comprises 3025 pages. Since the length of pre- trial detention is counted towards the duration of detention, early release will be examined for the first time around 10 years after the judgment, in 2028.

On August 19, 2021, the Federal Court of Justice confirmed the judgment against Zschäpe and rejected the appeal.

reception

The Nobel Prize for Literature, Elfriede Jelinek, wrote the play The Silent Girl about Zschäpe , which premiered in September 2014 at the Münchner Kammerspiele . A number of other plays deal with the NSU trio, including Lothar Kittstein's The White Wolf at the Schauspiel Frankfurt and Benjamin and Dominik Reding's NSU for you / An evening with Beate at the Deutsches Theater Berlin (see main article ).

Raymond Ley's TV film Last Exit Gera - Eight Hours with Beate Zschäpe , who tries to draw a portrait of her person, was broadcast on ZDF on January 26, 2016 ; Zschäpe was played by Lisa Wagner . On March 30, 2016, Das Erste broadcast the television film The perpetrators - Today is not every day as the prelude to a trilogy entitled In the Middle of Germany: NSU , which illuminates the NSU murders from different perspectives. Anna Maria Mühe embodied the role of Beate Zschäpe .

The hip-hop band Antilopen Gang released the song Beate Zschäpe listens to U2 on their album Aversion in 2014 . In the music video for the single, photos and descriptions of the NSU flat that became known were shown with a double zschäpes.

In January 2018, SWR2 broadcast Clemens Meyer's radio essay Im Netz der Spinnenfrau - or: Ten attempts on the NSU .

literature

Web links

Commons : Beate Zschäpe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. Munich Higher Regional Court: 3025 page judgment in the NSU trial. Az: 6 St 3/12. The verdict can be viewed at FragDenStaat .

Individual evidence

  1. The Nazi Bride - The Secret of Beate Zschäpe In: ZDFinfo via YouTube , February 22, 2014.
  2. ^ Judgment in the NSU trial in Süddeutsche Zeitung of July 11, 2018
  3. At home with the Zschaepe family. blog.zeit.de/nsu-prozess-blog, May 24, 2017, accessed on July 14, 2018 .
  4. ^ Right- wing terrorism: Beate, the brown widow. In: Die Zeit No. 23/2012.
  5. ^ A b c Christian Fuchs , John Goetz : Beate, the brown widow. In: Die Zeit , May 31, 2012.
  6. Beate Zschäpe loses her grandmother. Süddeutsche Zeitung, accessed on July 14, 2018 .
  7. a b Göran Schattauer: Almost run over by a tram. In: Focus , January 23, 2012.
  8. ^ Ralf Isermann: Zschäpe's enigmatic role. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . November 2, 2012, Retrieved November 4, 2012 .
  9. ^ A b Christian Fuchs, John Goetz: The cell. Right-wing terror in Germany. Reinbek near Hamburg, 2012, p. 60 ff.
  10. Today the NSU judgment will be pronounced: Beate Zschäpe - that's history, Focus online from July 11, 2018
  11. ^ Matthias Quent: Racism, radicalization, right-wing terrorism. How the NSU came about and what it reveals about society. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim, Basel 2016, p. 303 f.
  12. a b c d Andrea Röpke: In the underground, but not alone. In: Federal Agency for Civic Education , April 30, 2012.
  13. Julia Jüttner: Murderous Blood Brotherhood. In: Spiegel Online . November 13, 2011, accessed September 14, 2012 .
  14. ^ A b c Christian Fuchs , John Goetz : She had the boys under control. In: tagesschau.de , November 8, 2012.
  15. a b Constitutional Protection Report Thuringia 1998, quoted from: Government declaration of the Thuringian Minister of the Interior before the Landtag, Erfurt, June 21, 2012.
  16. ^ Rainer Erb : The Zwickau Terror Trio. In: Brandenburg State Center for Political Education . February 2012, accessed September 14, 2012 .
  17. Protection of the constitution wanted to recruit Beate Zschäpe. In: Focus , January 17, 2013.
  18. ^ The Nazi trio had contacts with the NPD leadership. In: Focus , December 11, 2011.
  19. Christian Fuchs, John Goetz: The cell. Right-wing terror in Germany. Reinbek near Hamburg, 2012, p. 208.
  20. Christian Fuchs, John Goetz: The cell. Right-wing terror in Germany. Reinbek near Hamburg, 2012, p. 240.
  21. Chronicle NSU. (PDF; 396 kB) Die Linke parliamentary group in the Thuringian state parliament, May 8, 2012, accessed on September 14, 2012 .
  22. ↑ Federal Prosecutor General sees the investigation on the right track. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 14, 2011.
  23. Federal Court of Justice: Order of September 12, 2012 in the preliminary investigation against Beate Zschäpe, for the formation of a terrorist organization, among other things. (PDF; 43 kB) September 12, 2012, accessed on September 14, 2012 .
  24. ^ Christian Fuchs, John Goetz: The cell. Right-wing terror in Germany. Reinbek near Hamburg, 2012, p. 242.
  25. Annette Ramelsberger et al: The NSU trial. Volume 5: Materials. Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2018, p. 33.
  26. Antonia von der Behrens: The network of the NSU, contributory negligence and prevented clearing up. In this. (Ed.): No closing words. VSA, Hamburg 2018, pp. 197–322, here pp. 281 f .; the statement of the investigating policewoman about the route can be found with Annette Ramelsberger, among other things: The NSU trial. The protocol. Volume 1: Evidence I. Kunstmann, Munich 2018, p. 241 f.
  27. "Hello, this is Beate Zschäpe": Policeman does not recognize right-wing terrorist. In: Augsburger Allgemeine , January 23, 2012.
  28. ^ The Federal Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice: press release 35/2011. November 11, 2011, accessed September 14, 2012 .
  29. ^ The Federal Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice: Federal Prosecutor's Office brings charges against Beate Zschäpe. November 8, 2012. Retrieved November 9, 2012 .
  30. There was petrol on Zschäpe's socks. In: Die Welt , November 6, 2013.
  31. Public prosecutor's office investigated against Zschäpe. In: Spiegel Online , February 12, 2013.
  32. a b Zschäpe's lawyers are partially withdrawing. ( Memento from January 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Tagesschau.de , January 9, 2013.
  33. Karin Truscheit: The court grants Zschäpe relief. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . January 9, 2013, accessed January 10, 2013 .
  34. Holger Schmidt: Zschäpe's defenders wedge against the GBA. In: SWR.de , September 1, 2012.
  35. Tom Sundermann: Zschäpe's shadow man. In: Zeit Online , NSU-Prozess-Blog, November 11, 2015.
  36. NSU: Zschäpe is now based in Munich. In: tz .de , accessed on March 27, 2014.
  37. Zschäpe rejects a psychiatric report. In: Spiegel Online , accessed December 17, 2012.
  38. Zschäpe wants to remain silent in court. In: Zeit Online , November 24, 2012.
  39. Zschäpe apologizes to NSU victims - their statements at a glance. In: Spiegel Online , December 9, 2015.
  40. Beate Zschäpe: "Constructed and alien to life". In: Zeit Online , December 9, 2015; Gisela Friedrichsen: Zschäpe statements in the NSU trial: a dubious plan. In: Spiegel Online , January 22, 2016.
  41. Tom Sundermann: Zschäpe's last secrets. In: Zeit Online , NSU-Prozess-Blog, September 20, 2016.
  42. NSU trial: Zschäpe breaks her silence. In: Zeit Online , September 29, 2016.
  43. Annette Ramelsberger : NSU trial: Zschäpe speaks, but she doesn't explain anything. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 29, 2016; Ulf Poschardt : NSU trial: Beate Zschäpe reveals that she is broken. In: Die Welt , September 29, 2016.
  44. Wiebke Ramm : Zschäpe statement in the NSU trial: No trace of shame. In: Spiegel Online , September 29, 2016.
  45. Samuel Salzborn: A distancing that is not: Zschäpe and the "nationalist thought". In: Zeit Online , Störungsmelder , October 5, 2016.
  46. Björn Hengst: Expert on Zschäpe - "tendency to dominance and toughness". In: Spiegel Online , January 18, 2017.
  47. Tom Sundermann: Caricature of Zschäpe's soul. In: Zeit Online , NSU-Prozess-Blog, January 11, 2017.
  48. ^ Tom Sundermann: Cash injection for Zschäpe. In: Zeit Online , NSU-Prozess-Blog, February 23, 2017.
  49. Annette Ramelsberger : NSU trial: Defense lawyers want Zschäpe to be declared incapable of guilt. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 30, 2017.
  50. NSU trial: the prosecution sees Zschäpe as an accomplice. In: Tagesschau.de , July 25, 2017.
  51. Kolja Schwartz, Frank Bräutigam: Lifelong - what would that mean for Zschäpe? In: Tagesschau.de , September 12, 2017.
  52. Tom Sundermann: A plea with few chances. In: Zeit Online , April 27, 2018.
  53. Tom Sundermann: The self-defense of the lawyers. In: Zeit Online , June 5, 2018; Tom Sundermann: A marathon called the NSU trial. In: Zeit Online , June 22, 2018.
  54. Frank Bräutigam: Closing remarks in the NSU trial: "I did not want that". In: Tagesschau.de , July 3, 2018; Frank Jansen: Beate Zschäpe speaks - but not plain text. In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 3, 2018; Tom Sundermann: How Beate Zschäpe misses her last chance. In: Zeit Online , July 3, 2018. See also Zschäpe's closing words in full. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 3, 2018.
  55. Life imprisonment for Beate Zschäpe. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , July 11, 2018.
  56. Martín Steinhagen: Federal Prosecutor's Office takes action against judgment. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , July 18, 2018; Frank Jansen: Defendants in the NSU trial are appealing. In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 19, 2018.
  57. We publish the verdict in the NSU trial. June 30, 2020, accessed May 4, 2021 .
  58. How long will Beate Zschäpe stay in prison? July 11, 2018, accessed August 19, 2021 .
  59. https://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2021/2021157.html?nn=10690868
  60. https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/nsu-process-endung-gegen-beate-zschaepe-ist-rechtskraeftig-a-2c2d28dd-c817-4aee-92c5-6de6a7f980ab
  61. Sven Ricklefs: Zschäpe as a virgin and murderer mother. In: Deutschlandfunk , September 28, 2014.
  62. Katrin Melchior: Antelope Walk - Beate Zschäpe listens to U2. In: Juice , November 5, 2014 (video).
  63. Clemens Meyer: In the web of the spider woman. Or: ten attempts via the NSU. In: SWR.de , January 11, 2018.