21 years after the alleged killing of her baby, a now 61-year-old has to answer before the Potsdam district court.

The accused woman did not want to comment on the allegations of the public prosecutor's office on the first day of the trial on Tuesday, as her defense attorney said.

The woman is accused of having given birth to a viable child in a residential building in the Schlaatz residential area of ​​Potsdam on an indefinite day between April and August 2000 and then killing it "by stabbing it with a sharp object in the chest" so as not to endanger her marriage Prosecutor Jörg Möbius said while reading out the indictment.

The child should not have been from her then husband.

The alleged act came to light in 2017 when the ex-husband of the 61-year-old German told a garden neighbor about what had happened.

The 68-year-old neighbor, who sat as a witness in court on Tuesday, recalls that he proudly reported the first encounter with his little granddaughter.

Suddenly the defendant's former husband said that she had had a child too.

"It is dead. It is no longer alive."

After the conversation, the neighbor filed a complaint

"I was shaking," the witness recalled.

The ex-husband described the evening to him in detail on a day in 2000.

The defendant's husband at the time came home from work earlier than usual.

There was a strange smell in the shared apartment.

In the bathroom he found his wife at the time, the defendant.

She sat in the bathtub "and there was blood everywhere".

The man found a bag with the dead baby in it.

Then he got dressed, went downstairs and disposed of the bag in a garbage can.

In contrast to the woman today, the husband of that time does not have to answer in court.

After the conversation, the 68-year-old neighbor filed a complaint.

In 2018, the public prosecutor's office will bring charges before the statute of limitations.

In the case of manslaughter, the statute of limitations is 20 years.

The mother of two, who tied her red hair in a ponytail on Tuesday and silently followed the process, is at large.

It took about three years for the trial to take place.

Accused acts by detainees usually take precedence in court.

The baby's body was never found.

"This is a purely circumstantial trial," said public prosecutor Möbius in the courtroom.

The court has set seven days for the trial.

The hearing is due to continue on Thursday next week (October 21).