More on the robberies, and on the ideology of Mundlos and Zschäpe

Today a childhood friend of Uwe Mundlos continued his testimony – on his earlier statements see the report of 15 April 2015. He reported several details about the violence of the Nazi scene, inter alia about a brutal attack on someone who “did not fit into the picture”, and about a fight in which Beate Zschäpe hit someone with a drinking glass. Mundlos had owned several weapons, inter alia a crossbow, knives and likely also a gas pistol.

His statement also showed that “the Three” had known quite well how to characterize their crimes in Jena and the likely police reaction – Zschäpe always checked whether she was being followed by the police, wrote down the licence plates of unmarked police cards, Mundlos told him that he was under suspicion for terrorist offences and asked him to get rid of evidence such as a computer in case of a concrete investigation.

The witness also related that Mundlos had, already back then, had many contacts in Chemnitz, had visited people there and also received visits from Chemnitz friends in Jena.

The witness was obviously at pains to make a true statement and to differentiate which details he could still remember 18 years later and which he could not. The Zschäpe and Wohlleben defense tried hard to represent this as contradictions in his statement, even accused the witness of lying. However, this transparent strategy was without success as not only victims’ counsel, but also the prosecution intervened several times and the court decided against the defense in each case.

The court also dealt with another NSU robbery, on a bank in Zwickau on 25 September 2002. According to several witnesses, Mundlos and Böhnhardt stormed into the building, sprayed tear gas at everyone present and threatened them with guns. The loot was approximately € 50,000, the two perpetrators fled on bicycles, just as they did after the murders.