NSU trial: "Only Beate Zschäpe can explain something"
Wolfgang Wieland is chairman of the Greens in the NSU Committee of Inquiry in the Bundestag and member of the Interior Committee. He visited on Tuesday the Munich NSU trial.
© Maurizio Gambarini / dpaChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Mr. Wieland, you were the chairman of the Greens in the NSU investigation committee in the Bundestag. Since the self-release of the NSU in November 2011 they are dealing with the case. Today you saw Beate Zschäpe for the first time. How did you experience it?
Wolfgang Wieland: No different than I imagined. I can only shake my head that such a person gets such a large publicity. After all, she is not Ulrike Meinhof, but a Bravo reader. We also use wrong drawers, wrong templates.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Who is Zschäpe then for you?
Wolfgang Wieland: It's rather Hannah Arendt's banality of evil: The cat friend who drinks Prosecco with her neighbors. A very banal life and at the same time a very bad one. Nevertheless, one has to say: For Zschäpe, unlike Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, the presumption of innocence applies.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: The NSU investigation committee in the Bundestag has completed its taking of evidence. The final report on which the political groups are currently writing already has a volume of 3000 pages. What are your hopes for the process anyway?
Wolfgang Wieland: I would like a confession from Beate Zschäpe. Because she can explain things we did not get out and could not get out. Only she can explain the subjective side: what did the perpetrators think? Did you really think you were making a difference? Why did you stop murdering? Why did they finally kill a policewoman? Again, the question: Why exactly Michèle Kiesewetter? There is scary evidence that Kiesewetter knew her killers. We tried so hard, but we could not figure out how it really was. Only Beate Zschäpe can tell us that.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: What else can the process clarify without a Zschäpe confession?
Wolfgang Wieland: Here in Munich, it's about the supporters who sit in the dock: Did they just want to help their comrades in the underground, or did they want to help murderers? With Wohlleben the latter can be assumed: He knew about the weapons, he could read the paper. From him we know the sentence: "It is better if you do not know what the three do." To Holger G. today I have only heard the prosecutor who heard him in the preliminary investigation. So much naivety, that he sits on the train, carries a weapon and does not even look into the jute bag, that's unbelievable. The supporters play down their role. Even with Carsten S. there is an enormous displacement performance, as far as his own Tatbeitrag is concerned. That bothers him a lot. And I have to say, rightly so. He could have stopped the murder series with a clue to the police.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Stopping the murder series could also have the security authorities ...
Wolfgang Wieland: Yes, even before it was committed. Those who watched as they went underground, in Chemnitz, for example. In Thuringia, the protection of the Constitution and the police have worked against each other. This is a huge state failure, they have never assembled and not reported up.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: The authorities are not sitting in the dock.
Wolfgang Wieland: The committees of inquiry were there for that? they have laid the foundation for the Enlightenment. Now the judiciary must give an answer, the prosecution must be better. But the brunt is civil society. I hope that after the 4th of November 2011, nothing will be the same as before, that we will take neo-Nazis more seriously. That after the NSU shock it is clear that not only bark, but also bite, not only sing, but also murder.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Do you feel that something has already changed?
Wolfgang Wieland: Unfortunately no. I am appalled by certain continuities: The NSU murder series could not be solved because the investigations were one-sided and driven by group-specific prejudices. This operational blindness seems to continue: Take, for example, the Nuremberg pipe bomb attack, the so-called flashlight, which Carsten S. suddenly remembered. A homemade pipe bomb in the restaurant of a Turkish operator. Here, based on information provided by Carsten S., a preliminary investigation has been initiated in the process.But why did not the public prosecutor's office in Nuremberg recognize this as another possible NSU offense and previously reported it to the Federal Prosecutor's Office? Countless old cases have already been checked for a possible connection with the NSU. It is shocking that exactly this attack, which corresponds to the actions of the NSU, was not found during the long investigation period. The case also shows that we still do not know everything.
For the ChroniquesDuVasteMonde at the NSU trial site is Lena fight. She is currently reporting for ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com and stern.de.
