A psychiatrist has presented the first part of his assessment of alleged NSU member Zschäpe, finding her mentally sound. The report also marks the beginning of the end for the yearslong case that scandalized Germany.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/A. Gebert
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Court-appointed psychiatrist Henning Sass presented his highly anticipated evaluation of alleged far-right gang member Beate Zschäpe to the higher regional court in Munich on Tuesday.
Early on in his oral remarks to the court, Sass emphasized that he could not identify any significant mental health problems with Zschäpe.
Speaking to judges at Munich's regional court on Wednesday, Sass said that the former member of the neo-Nazi group posed a "high risk" for committing actions similar to group members Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt.
This diagnosis was valid if her role within the "National Socialist Underground" was described accurately in the indictment and if Zschäpe's statement that she agreed to her comrades' actions only unwillingly was incorrect, he added.
Sass did not specify the extent to which he found Zschäpe's own testimony plausible. However, witnesses' accounts went against the assumption that Zschäpe "bowed to the will of her two companions in such important matters." According to him, the 42-year-old was therefore fully responsible for what had happened. Sass said he could not find any psychological problems that could impact "accountability."
He attested that the defendant displays "egocentric" behavioral patterns and that she tends to defer responsibility and trivialize her own behavior. At the same time, however, Zschäpe displays a "healthy self-esteem."
Sass said Zschäpe had refused to be interviewed by the psychiatrist, so his findings are based on his observations of her during the trial's 336 proceedings thus far, witness testimonies and Zschäpe's own statements and files. He admitted that direct talks with the defendant would have been preferred.
Reviewing this data, Sass said Zschäpe had a talent for "stealth, concealment and deception" after living underground with her co-accused Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt for 14 years.
A psychiatric assessment was ordered after the 42-year-old defendant showed a continued lack of emotion and remained silent during her three-and-a-half-year trial in the southern German city of Munich.
Zschäpe is accused, along with two others, of involvement in ten murders, two bombings and 15 bank robberies carried out by the National-Socialist Underground (NSU), a secret neo-Nazi group that operated between 2000 and 2007.
Her co-accused, Mundlos and Böhnhardt, died in an apparent murder-suicide in 2011.
Sass cited witness statements that said Zschäpe could always "control her boys," referencing Mundlos and Böhnhardt.
A second part of Sass' assessment will be presented to the court on Wednesday. In a draft of the report sent to the court, Sass already said he believes Zschäpe is criminally liable and responsible for her actions.
The court will use Sass' report to help determine Zschäpe's risk of reoffending, as well as her level of guilt in the crimes.
Chronicle of the NSU murders
The crimes of the neo-Nazi terror cell and the way state authorities dealt with them, still reverberate today. DW gives you the background to an affair that has shaken Germany.
Image: picture alliance / dpa
A mysterious string of murders
For years, neo-Nazis of the right-wing organization National Socialist Underground (NSU) killed people across Germany. The suspects: Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt (center) and Beate Zschäpe. Their victims: eight people of Turkish origin, one Greek man and a German policewoman. Their motive: xenophobia. Until 2011, the German public was not aware of the scope of their crimes.
Image: privat/dapd
Unsuccessful bank robbery
The murder spree was uncovered on November 4, 2011, when Mundlos and Böhnhardt robbed a bank in the east German town of Eisenach. For the first time, they failed. Police officers surrounded the caravan in which the two men were holed up. A later investigation concluded that Mundlos first shot and killed Böhnhardt, then set the caravan on fire and killed himself.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Zschäpe turns herself in
Shortly after the death of Böhnhardt and Mundlos there was an explosion at Frühlingsstraße 26 in Zwickau, in the state of Saxony. Beate Zschäpe lived at that address together with the two bank robbers. Zschäpe allegedly set the house on fire to destroy evidence. Four days later, she turned herself in to the police. The terror suspect has been custody since that day.
Image: Getty Images
The truth comes out
In the ruins of the Zwickau flat, police officers found a self-made video in which the terror cell claimed responsibility under the name of the NSU, the National-Socialist Underground. The 15-minute video shows crime scenes and pictures of the victims killed by the right-wing terrorist group between 2000 and 2007.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
NSU claim responsibility
Famous cartoon character The Pink Panther hosts the amateur video, which is full of slogans of hatred against people with an immigrant background and which mocks the murder victims. Before her arrest, Zschäpe allegedly sent out copies of the video in which the NSU claimed responsibility for the crimes.
Image: dapd
Verbal slip-ups
Until 2011, the term "döner murders" was frequently used when reporting about the killings. Nothing was known about the connection between the individual cases, nor about the motive. There were rumors the victims were linked to the drug scene. But the NSU's video left no doubt. The term "döner murders" was chosen as Germany's "Unwort des Jahres" (doublespeak of the year) in 2011.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
NSU also behind Cologne pipe bomb
"The findings made by our security authorities so far show no indication of a terrorist background, but of a criminal milieu," said German Interior Minister Otto Schily on June 10, 2004. A day earlier, a pipe bomb explosion in Cologne left 22 people injured and many shops damaged. In 2011, it became clear: the NSU’s right-wing terrorists were also behind the Cologne bombing.
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Memorial service in Berlin
On February 23, 2012, Germany commemorated the victims. At the ceremony at a Berlin concert hall, the focus was on the relatives of the victims. Semiya Simsek (right), the daughter of the murdered flower stand owner Enver Simsek, gave an emotional speech. German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an official apology to the victims and promised them that all questions would be answered.
Image: Bundesregierung/Kugler
Memorial for Mehmet Kubasik
"Dortmund is a colorful, tolerant and welcoming town – and opposes right-wing extremism!" This statement was made by mayor Ullrich Sierau at the unveiling of the memorial stone for NSU victim Mehmet Kubasik in September 2012. The memorial was set up just meters away from the kiosk in which Kubasik was killed on April 4, 2006.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Solidarity with the victims
On November 4, 2012, exactly a year after the terror cell was uncovered, people in many German cities staged solidarity demonstrations against right-wing extremism. The protesters called for thorough investigations into the racially motivated murders - which in their view was not happening fast enough.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Beate Zschäpe lone survivor
Believed to be the last survivor of the NSU trio, Beate Zschäpe went on trial in May 2013.Over 800 witnesses were heard. Zschäpe did not speak for the first two and a half years of the trial.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Schrader
Life sentence
Beate Zschäpe was given a life sentence. She was found guilty of joint complicity in 10 counts of murder, arson, robbery, extortion, the formation of a terrorist organization and membership in a terrorist organization. Though there was no evidence that she herself was present at the scene of the crimes, the judges felt that the "particular severity of guilt" required for a life sentence applied.
Image: Getty Images/A. Gebert
The co-accused
Ralf Wohlleben received 10 years for procuring weapons for the NSU, co-accused Holger G. got three years for providing false identity papers. Another co-accused, Andre E, received two and a half years for providing the NSU with rail passes in his and his wife's name. He also allegedly rented a mobile home which the cell drove to Cologne to carry out a bombing.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/C. Stache
Long lasting impact
When conservative politician Walter Lübcke was murdered by a neo-Nazi activist in 2019, his name was also found on the 'list of enemies' for targetted killings. Lübcke had come under attack from the far-right following a speech he made in 2015 defending the decision to take in refugees from the Syrian war.
Image: Swen Pförtner/dpa/picture alliance
Securty agency failings
The federal and the state parliaments launched investigations to shed light on the security authorities' failures in the NSU case: The role of paid informants, the lack of cooperation between the various intelligence agencies and state interior ministries, which are responsible for police in the respective states, and allegations of systemic racism on the part of German authorities.
The 42-year-old Zschäpe has admitted to an arson charge, but has ardently denied committing the murders. Prosecutors believe that she aided in bank robberies and bomb attacks and that she helped cover the fellow suspects' tracks after the killings were committed.
Commentators said Sass' report is likely to strongly influence the sentence handed down to Zschäpe. It was delayed several times because of applications from the defense.
Zschäpe faces life in prison if convicted.
Four other junior members of the NSU are on trial with Zschäpe.
After staying silent during most of her three-year trial, Zschäpe told the court last September that having been drawn in to nationalist ideology as a young woman in eastern Germany after reunification, she had turned away from far-right ideology. But the short statement made no reference to her alleged crimes.
Investigators say the NSU was behind the murder of eight Turkish-Germans, a Greek migrant and a German policewoman. The group is also believed to have carried out a series of nail-bomb attacks in immigrant neighborhoods.
