Beate Zschäpe

Beate Zschäpe (2 January 1975) is a German right-wing extremist and an alleged member of the Neo-Nazi terror group National Socialist Underground (NSU).

Background and childhood

Beate Zschäpe's mother was a citizen of the GDR, who studied dentistry in Bucharest. According to her mother, Zschäpe's father was a Romanian fellow dentistry student. Zschäpe never met him and he denied being her father until his death in 2000. Her mother was unable to practise dentistry because of an allergy and worked in accounts at Zeiss until 1991 when she became (but did not register as) unemployed. Living in an austere neighbourhood of Jena, Zschäpe's relationship with her mother was at best uneasy and she spent a lot of time in the care of her grandmother. Her mother got divorced twice and each time Zschäpe took on the surname of her mother's new partner. During the first fifteen years of her life she moved six times within Jena and its surroundings.

A school report for her second school year (1982/1983) says, "Beate strives to achieve good learning results, but often lacks the necessary concentration and order, so she does not reach her full capability ... she is actively and joyfully involved in Pioneer Life." In 1991, after she finished tenth grade (age 15-16), she left her mainstream school, the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe School, in the Winzerla district of Jena and began work under a job creation program as a painter’s assistant. She then went on to do an apprenticeship as a gardener, from 1992 until 1996, specializing in vegetable growing.

Political development

In the time around the reunification of Germany in 1989, the politics around Zschäpe were in turmoil and, in contrast to official GDR propaganda, racism was already widespread.

Aged 14, she joined a youth gang which called itself "Die Zecken" ("The Ticks") whose members included punks with nose rings and hair dyed bright red. Although the group considered itself politically leftist, there were also completely non-politically oriented members. When "Die Zecken" planned to attack a meeting of young right-extremists and beat a few of them up, she tagged along. Otherwise she is described at the time as just wanting to enjoy life, only seldom expressing herself politically, and as having a liking for the magazine Bravo (illegal in the GDR).

Her involvement with the political right began around 1991. She met Uwe Mundlos, the son of a professor at the Jena University of Applied Sciences teaching computer science, who arrived in Winzerla with his family just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. She formed a relationship with him and entered the neo-Nazi world of Jena coming into contact with the national and international neo-Nazi network. Uwe Böhnhardt, the son of a teacher and an engineer, became a close friend of theirs. Another friend of theirs at the time later describes her as primitive, empty-headed, with a vulgar demeanour and way of expression lacking any concern for manners. Mundlos he describes as clever but lazy. Criminality (including stealing computers from his school) had left Böhnhardt without qualifications. Neither Zschäpe nor Mundlos were without criminal behaviour by this time. A co-accused in the NSU trial describes Zschäpe as an achiever and not one to be subordinated. A letter Zschäpe wrote while in prison is 26 pages long, in legible, clear script without spelling errors. Sketches in it show clear ability at drawing.

Imprisonment and accusation

On 8 November 2011, Beate Zschäpe tried to turn herself in to the police by a phone call, when she introduced herself saying, "Hello, this is Beate Zschäpe." She said that she was the person they had been looking for and that she was the reason why the whole city had been closed off. However, the policeman who had answered the call did not recognize her and said he did not know anything about such a case. A few hours later, Zschäpe herself arrived with her lawyer at the police station in Jena. Since 8 November 2011, Beate Zschäpe has been held in custody. On 11 November 2011, the Office of the Attorney General of Germany started investigations because of Zschäpe's supposed membership in a terrorist unit. On 8 November 2012, one year after the series of murders became known, the Office of the Attorney General pressed charges against Zschäpe and four alleged supporters. "As a founding member of the NSU …", she was accused of having taken part in the murders of eight fellow citizens of Turkish origin and one fellow citizen of Greek origin, in the murderous attack on two police officers in Heilbronn, as well as in the attempted murders by bomb attacks of the NSU in the historic district of Cologne and in Cologne-Müllheim. According to the charge, the NSU was a group of three members with equal rights who committed their crimes after having coordinated their division of labour. In this process, Zschäpe is said to have had the indispensable task of giving the existence of such a terrorist unit the appearance of normality and legality among other things by maintaining an inconspicuous façade at their respective places of residence and by securing their joint flat as a safe haven and headquarters for their actions. In addition, she is said to have been "significantly responsible for the logistics of the group". Thus she had managed the stolen money from the robberies and had rented caravans several times, including a vehicle used in one of the crimes, according to the Office of the Attorney General reports in the bill of indictment. In a dactyloscopic report, evidence of Zschäpe's DNA is stated to have been found on newspaper articles about the bomb attack in Cologne and the murder of Habil Kilic. In addition, Zschäpe is accused of having "set the flat in Zwickau on fire, hereby having rendered herself liable for prosecution for the attempted murder of a neighbour and two craftsmen as well as for particularly serious arson". The department of public prosecution in Zwickau also investigated her because child pornographic data had been found on her computer. However, this investigation was said to have been closed, since the penalty for this would be of "no significant weight" in comparison to the penalty for the alleged actions of which she had already been accused.

Whatever the earlier relationship between mother and daughter, in February 2013, her 60-year-old mother, Annerose Zschäpe, told Focus that she thought her daughter was being prejudged and that her position was not being considered objectively. She said that part of a statement she had made to police was misrepresented in the press or taken out of context. There was a lot she would like to see put straight, but did not want to say more before the trial commenced.

The trial has been taking place since 6 May 2013 before a division of the Higher Regional Court in Munich dealing with state security cases. According to the code of criminal procedure, the trial must take place in one of the federal states in which one of the crime scenes of the NSU is located. Five of the nine murders of immigrants took place in Bavaria. Zschäpe is defended by Wolfgang Heer (Cologne), Wolfgang Stahl (Koblenz) and Anja Sturm (Berlin). Beate Zschäpe had been imprisoned in the prison in Cologne-Ossendorf but has been moved to a prison in Munich. She refused examination by the court-designated psychologist Henning Sass. According to her defence counsel, Zschäpe cannot be accused of complicity in the NSU murders. In January 2013, the Higher Regional Court in Munich proposed to ease the conditions of Zschäpe’s imprisonment because the NSU did not exist anymore and, therefore, support of the group by the imprisoned woman was no longer possible.

In December 2015 Zschäpe, the only surviving member, broke her silence after two and a half years and made a statement, denying that she had been a member of the NSU; although she was involved with members, she herself was not a member and disapproved of their actions. She apologised to victims' families, saying that she felt morally guilty that she could not prevent the murders and bomb attacks carried out by Uwe Mundlos und Uwe Böhnhardt. Few took her apology seriously, with opinions that she was trying to deny her responsibility. Newspaper Bild ran a headline "Zschaepe's confession - nothing but excuses!"