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Beate Zschäpe during the NSU trial

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Matthias Schrader/ AP

The convicted right-wing terrorist Beate Zschäpe spoke to the Bavarian NSU investigative committee in an hour-long interrogation about her complicity in the series of murders of the "National Socialist Underground" – and, in the opinion of participants, went further than before.

Committee chairman Toni Schuberl (Greens) reported on Monday that Zschäpe's admission of guilt had a "new quality." Zschäpe had said that she clearly saw the blame in herself, said Schuberl: "As if she had pulled the trigger herself." Zschäpe said that she did not want the deeds – but also that they were only possible because of her. And that she could have prevented the crimes, namely if she had turned herself in when she learned of the first murder.

Zschäpe was questioned all Monday long in a non-public meeting by the members of the Bavarian state parliament. It was the first time she had spoken out since the end of the trial, and the first time ever that Zschäpe had responded directly to questions. In the NSU trial, she had only made written statements, replied in writing to questions and only spoke twice herself – including in her closing remarks.

The detailed presentation apparently caused astonishment among the committee members. The "Bild" newspaper quotes committee chairman Schuberl as saying: "We didn't expect that. Most of the people outside the committee said she wouldn't talk to us at all." However, they did not expect any big, surprising statements – and did not get them, as the MDR Schuberl further quotes.

Zschäpe's lawyer Mathias Grasel said his client had admitted her complicity "much more intensively" than in the trial. The fact remains that there was no active participation, neither in the preparation nor in the implementation," said Grasel. But she said very clearly several times today: If I had acted and reacted differently after the first murder, nothing else would have happened."

"It's not very credible"

On the other hand, many of those present were disappointed by Zschäpe's statements on specific details. The aim of the second NSU committee of inquiry in the state parliament is, among other things, to clarify possible connections between the NSU and the neo-Nazi scene in Bavaria. Here, however, the committee hoped in vain for Zschäpe's answers.

Schuberl reported that Zschäpe had denied having been to Nuremberg several times. Deputy committee chairman Holger Dremel (CSU) summed up Zschäpe's statement as follows: There were no accomplices in Bavaria. "It's not very credible," said Arif Tasdelen, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

In the NSU trial, Zschäpe had admitted to having known about the bank robberies of her friends and to have set fire to the trio's last escape apartment in Zwickau, Saxony. But she only learned about the murders and attacks after the fact. "I feel morally guilty that I couldn't prevent ten murders and two bombings," she added at the time. Later, in a brief statement, she said she regretted her "wrongdoing" and condemned what Mundlos and Böhnhardt "did" to the victims.

The Munich Higher Regional Court, on the other hand, followed the argumentation of the Federal Prosecutor's Office: Zschäpe had indeed "known everything, supported everything and helped steer and bring about it in her own way". The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) rejected Zschäpe's appeal in August 2021. She has been serving her sentence in Chemnitz prison since 2019.

The »National Socialist Underground« (NSU) was a terrorist cell consisting of Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, which committed ten murders throughout Germany for years from 2000 onwards, five of them in Bavaria. Their victims were nine businessmen of Turkish and Greek origin and a German policewoman. Mundlos and Böhnhardt also carried out two bomb attacks in Cologne, injuring dozens of people. The two killed themselves in 2011 to avoid arrest – only then was the NSU exposed. Zschäpe, the trio's only survivor, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 after more than five years of trial – as an accomplice, even though there is no evidence that she herself was at a crime scene.

sol/dpa