Beate Zschaepe, 43, was given the life sentence late yesterday for 10 murders, all shootings of Turkish and Greek-born immigrants and a German police officer between 200 and 2007.
Zschaepe was one of the evil trio known as National Socialist Underground (NSU) – the two other members were her former lovers Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt who died in a suicide pact in 2011 after a failed bank robbery.
It was her relationship with them that saw her labelled the “Nazi Bride” by German media.
The trial judge Manfred Goetzl said she would never be released due to the “exceptional severity of the crime”.
He told the court the trio’s killing spree had its origins in Mundlos’ hatred of multicultural Germany. He had even designed a computer game where the players opened fire on Jews.
“The accused Zschaepe took on the far-right views of her environment,” Mr Goetzl said.
It wasn’t until her two accomplices died that the full extent of their crimes were revealed. In a shocking twist, it was Zschaepe who revealed it by releasing a dark confession set bizarrely to a Pink Panther theme tune.
Beate Zschaepe will spend the rest of her life behind bars.Source:AFP
The NSU – Uwe Boehnhardt, Uwe Mundlos and Beate Zschaepe.Source:AP
Until then the murders had been blamed on immigrant gangs by police, with the victims themselves involved in organised crime.
Zschaepe argued she was told about the killings after they were committed. The only things she admitted was helping plot some of the NSU’s string of bank robberies and setting fire to their home after the two men took their own lives.
She grew up in the country’s east where a skinhead culture existed. In court, she tried to distance herself from her past by saying racist views had “no meaning for me anymore”.
It didn’t work.
The guilty verdict ended a marathon trial that first opened in March 2013 and has seen a staggering 800 witnesses called to give evidence. It was the biggest court case Germany has seen since the hearings of those who committed atrocities at Auschwitz.
Not everyone is convinced all the questions have been answered.
Lawyers for Zschaepe have indicated she will appeal the guilty verdicts.Source:AFP
Banners with the names and pictures of victims of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) are fixed to a fence.Source:AFP
In 2012, an intelligence chief Heinz Fromm resigned when it was discovered his service shredded files that had information on the NSU members, while various parliamentary committees tried to understand how the group got away with it for so long.
The chairman of the last parliamentary inquest, Uli Groetsch, said it was clear that the three were “supported by a broad network of neo-Nazis”.
Many relatives believe there are other killers out there.
“I’m 100 per cent sure that there are still accomplices out there,” said Abdulkerim Simsek, the son of the trio’s first victim, Enver Simsek.
One of their main concerns is the victims were spread over such a wide area, which suggested the trip got information about them through local contacts
Others have called for authorities to launch new inquiries.
