With a comprehensive testimony by the accused father, the trial of the violent death of a two-month-old baby began before the Wiesbaden district court.

The 23-year-old man described on Tuesday at the beginning of the homicide trial what, from his point of view, happened on New Year's Eve 2020/2021 in his apartment in Wiesbaden.

There the man celebrated the New Year with his fiancée and mother of the child as well as friends with plenty of alcohol.

Late that night, the father said he went to bed with his daughter. A little later he woke up because the baby kept screaming. He tried to calm the daughter down for ten to 15 minutes. Then, the man admitted, he closed the mouth and nose of the daughter, who was still screaming, and pressed “a little longer” to calm her down. "There was some pressure in it - not so tight," he said.

The thought just occurred to him, he said, crying in court: "At that moment I couldn't help myself." When asked by an expert about his emotional state at that moment, he emphasized that he had not acted out of anger.

Rather, he felt a feeling of "annoyance".

He did not ask his fiancée, who was sleeping in the next room, for help.

"I didn't want to show how helpless I am and then come across as a failure."

The public prosecutor's office accuses the defendant of suffocating the baby by covering his mouth and nose.

The twenty-three-year-old said the child was still alive afterwards, gasping for air, calmed down and "looked around the room".

After checking the diaper, he fell asleep again - without getting out of bed or turning on the room light.

It was only when he woke up the next morning around 11 a.m. that his daughter was blue and lying on his stomach next to him and he knew that something was wrong. However, the defendant “did not want to speculate” about what happened between falling asleep and waking up. He said, “I deeply regret what I did. If I could, I would undo so many things - but unfortunately I can't. ”The man himself had dialed the emergency number and tried to resuscitate the baby until the emergency services arrived.

A 26-year-old paramedic who was summoned as a witness said he was unable to find any signs of life just five minutes after the emergency call had been sent, and that the body temperature was only 32 degrees Celsius.

When asked about a hematoma on the baby's forehead, the defendant said he accidentally hit a door frame with the child some time before.

The trial continues on November 1st with the mother's interrogation.