The Wohlleben defense, of all people, tries to depoliticize the racist murders

Today the Wohlleben defense made further comments on their motion to hear a psychiatric expert witness concerning Mundlos and Böhnhardt. The aim of that motion, according to counsel Klemke, was to prove that the Böhnhardt’s and Mundlos’ motive for the murder had not been “xenophobia”, but rather a “lust to kill”, which was based in the two men’s antisocial personality disorder and which thus could not be recognized by third persons. In the NSU videos, Böhnhardt and Mundlos had then tried, according to Klemke, to hide that motivation by claiming to have acted out of “xenophobia”.

Of course, this attempt by the defense will not be successful – on the legal question, the prosecution simply noted that an “antisocial” perpetrator was still able to develop motives for murder such as racism and that accordingly, the expert testimony requested by the defense would not be of any help to the court. Neither will the strategy be successful politically – after all, as noted by victims’ counsel Yavuz Narin, it is apparent that precisely those aspects on which Klemke tried to base his pseudo-psychiatric “diagnosis” – the dehumanization of the victims, a total lack of empathy and a tendency towards “self-stylization or self-heroization” – were simply an expression of the inhuman National Socialist ideology which Böhnhardt and Mundlos adhered to.

An ideology, moreover, which Wohlleben also adhered to and still adheres to, contrary to the denials of his defense – this is clearly shown by a T-Shirt found in his apartment in 2011 which depicts the train tracks leading to the concentration camp Auschwitz under the heading of “Railway Romanticism” and which Wohlleben had apparently slept in. The defense nonetheless tries time and again to present their client as a peace-loving National Democrat.

At the same time, the defense uses every opportunity it can to make propaganda on behalf of the Nazi party NPD and Wohlleben’s Nazi comrades outside the courtroom in its motions and statements in court, activities with which earned the applause of that scene. Not so today: accused André Eminger, in whose living room police found a hand-drawn portrait of Böhnhardt and Mundlos above the slogan “unforgotten”, was apparently not happy at all about this depolitization of his heroes, followed the reading of the motion cross-armed and with a disparaging facial expression.

The trial days on Thursday as well as next Tuesday and Wednesday have been canceled, the trial will continue on Thursday, 29 June with expert witness Prof. Saß.