terrorist group
Suspected NSU supporter charged
The NSU trial against members like Beate Zschäpe began in May 2013 at the Munich Higher Regional Court. photo
© Peter Kneffel/dpa
At the end of 2011, the NSU’s right-wing terrorist activities were exposed. The case shocked Germany far beyond its borders. But the file is far from closed.
Because of alleged help for the terrorist group “The Federal Prosecutor’s Office has charged the wife of a supporter who has already been legally convicted of the National Socialist Underground (NSU).
According to more recent findings, the suspicion of supporting the domestic terrorist organization NSU and aiding and abetting a serious predatory blackmail with weapons against the German woman has been confirmed, the prosecution in Karlsruhe said – without giving any details. As “Spiegel” reported online, this was also based on statements made by right-wing terrorist Beate Zschäpe. She was questioned several times in prison.
The federal prosecutor said the woman was at large. The presumption of innocence applies until the legal conclusion of proceedings. The State Security Senate of the Dresden Higher Regional Court must decide whether there will be a trial.
The defendant is the wife of André E., whom the Munich Higher Regional Court sentenced to two and a half years in prison in 2018. The judges saw it as proven that E. had organized several Bahncards for the NSU trio between 2009 and 2011 that were issued to him and his wife – but showed photos of Zschäpe and Uwe Böhnhardt. However, they acquitted him of, among other things, aiding and abetting attempted murder.
Health insurance card, rail cards and a motorhome
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office’s statement states that the defendant had known since the beginning of 2007 at the latest that the NSU members were living underground under false identities and had committed racially motivated murders and several bank robberies. “From autumn 2008 onwards, she gave Zschäpe her health insurance card several times so that she could attend doctor’s appointments without being recognized.”
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office also looks at the Bahncards: The fact that the woman provided her personal details enabled the NSU members “to travel on Deutsche Bahn trains at a reduced price without the risk of being exposed.” In addition, in October 2011, the defendant drove Zschäpe and Böhnhardt to a pick-up appointment for a mobile home that the NSU used during its last robbery in Eisenach on November 4, 2011. The defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The NSU was a neo-Nazi terror cell consisting of Zschäpe, Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos, which carried out ten murders across Germany undetected for years from 2000 onwards. Their victims were nine traders 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 discovered. Zschäpe was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 after a trial that lasted a good five years. André E. was one of four other co-defendants in the trial. The Federal Court of Justice rejected all appeals against the judgment.