3 May 2017<\/a>). What was already clear after his first appearance in court became even more clear today: Bauer\u2019s opinion is not worth the paper it is printed on.<\/p>\nBauer related that he first visited Zsch\u00e4pe in his capacity as a physician, only after Zsch\u00e4pe had told him about alleged violent attacks by Uwe B\u00f6hnhardt and he had informed her counsel of these claims had he been tasked with presenting an expert opinion. He was of the firm opinion that he could nonetheless present an objective, neutral opinion \u2013 even after being informed that most courts consider an earlier physician-patient relationship, which is after all based on trust and partiality, an obstacle to tasking the same physician with presenting an expert opinion.<\/p>\n
And indeed, Bauer\u2019s statements in court were as partial towards Zsch\u00e4pe as they could be, no matter how many times he asserted that his was a highly scientific and \u201cvery good\u201d expert opinion.<\/p>\n
The partiality in his opinion already began with the choice of the aspects of the facts of the case used as a basis: it was the defense who decided which parts of the case file Bauer was given, and even when he asked the attorneys to provide him with the testimony of all witnesses who had made statements on Zsch\u00e4pe\u2019s characters, they gave him only some of those testimonies, holding back inter alia several witnesses who had met Zsch\u00e4pe, B\u00f6hnhardt and Mundlos while vacationing. Bauer has never before presented a forensic expert opinion, had only had a part in writing some five or six opinions as a young resident in the 1980s. He is not aware of the \u201cminimum requirements\u201d laid down for forensic psychiatric expert opinions or for assessments of credibility of statements \u2013 but nonetheless bases his opinion almost entirely on claims by Zsch\u00e4pe which he deems credible even in the absence of any confirming evidence. Bauer must admit not having asked Zsch\u00e4pe a number of questions it would have been \u201cdesirable\u201d to ask \u2013 but is nonetheless unequivocal in stating that there is no way in which a more in-depth exploration could change any aspect of his opinion.<\/p>\n
Bauer made the impression of someone who had cast himself in the role of male protector of the pure misunderstood woman \u2013 thus once more reproducing the viewpoint of female Nazis as mere accessories of male Nazis, lacking any will of their own. Particularly hard to stomach were his attempts of presenting his expert opinion for Zsch\u00e4pe in line with the treatment in the 1990s of severely traumatized Bosnian women having fled from the civil war.<\/p>\n
As victims\u2019 counsel Eberhard Reinecke aptly summarized in a short statement after Bauer\u2019s testimony, Bauer had spoken as a \u201ccharacter witness in the guise of a professor\u201d \u2013 a witness whose testimony will have no impact at all on the court\u2019s judgment.<\/p>\n
Bauer\u2019s testimony did, however, at least bring to light some new facts: Zsch\u00e4pe had confirmed to him that she had known of the various robberies committed by B\u00f6hnhardt and Mundlos beforehand. The defense strategy thus once more ended in an own goal.<\/p>\n
There will be no trial next Tuesday. Wednesday, 24 May, Beate Zsch\u00e4pe\u2019s mother will have her \u2013 likely very brief \u2013 appearance in the courtroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Expert witness Prof. Bauer: \u201ea character witness in the guise of a professor\u201d Today the court and parties questioned expert witness Prof. Bauer (on his expert opinion see the report of 3 May 2017). What was already clear after his first appearance in court became even more clear today: Bauer\u2019s opinion is not worth the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1415,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsu-nebenklage.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}