This trial week brought hardly any relevant results.

A police officer reported on her investigations concerning Zschäpe’s whereabouts between leaving the burning house in the Frühlingsstraße in Zwickau and surrendering to the police. The details of this tour will be introduced via more direct witnesses lateron.

One interesting insight was provided by the testimony of a neighbor from the Polenzstraße in Zwickau and her son. The neighbor had apparently found in Zschäpe a friend who was willing to listen to her speak about her worries and who continued to visit her after moving out of the Polenzstraße. Zschäpe had not only listened, but had also helped out with grocery shopping. During her police questioning, the witness had expressed her horror over groceries bought with “blood money”. She made no such statement in court, quite to the contrary, there was an atmosphere closer to solidarity between the witness and her former friend.

Next to testify was her son, who could not speak in detail about everyday life with Zschäpe. However, he claimed, as had his mother before him, that Zschäpe had warned him from drifting into the right-wing scene. However, his reports on that conversation and that of his mother differed very significantly as regards central aspects. It seems likely that mother and son were trying to show their common acquaintance and friend Zschäpe in a positive light.

This is all the more so given that the son, while claiming not to have anything to with “right wing politics”, showed a significant affinity with a neo-Nazi world view and thus had a motive to help Zschäpe. Having been read quotes from an interview he had given anonymously, he stated that he “very honestly hated” asylum seekers who “did not work”. Asked about claims by NSU victims for compensation, he characterized them as “absolutely unsocial. There are other people who have experienced worse things. … They don’t get any compensation.” Finally, he also admitted that his face book page showed approving links to the right-wing campaign against a home for asylum seekers in Schneeberg and for the right wing rock band “Endstufe”. Asked in what way he differed from a “right winger”, he stated that right wingers showed their political opinions openly while he tried to hide his. Given this definition, many of the right wing witnesses in this trial could probably be described as “apolitical”, at least when it comes to their testimony in court.

Finally, some holiday acquaintances of “the Three” repeated what others before them had stated: in the context of rather costly holidays among Germans, Böhnhardt, Mundlos and Zschäpe were nice neighbors, fond of kids, with whom one could easily spend time. Beate Zschäpe was the motherly type who cared for “her men” and who was in charge of the money.