When we visited the Munich courtroom earlier this year, all eyes were trained on Zschäpe, who stared at her laptop and seemed more worried about running out of the crate of coconut water she had brought to the trial than anything that might happen there. With her neat long hair and signature trouser-suit, she appeared deeply at ease, smiling like a professional model for a brief press photo session, before she settled back among the lawyers, from whom she is almost indistinguishable.
In the press and visitors spectator booth, set behind glass above the courtroom, conspiracy-theorists, bloggers, newspaper reporters, and law students studying the trial all sit together alongside a few loyal Zschäpe groupies. (The most notorious of Zschäpes fans, Anders Breivik, the extreme-rightwing Norwegian terrorist, sent her a letter of solidarity from prison in 2012.)
Zschäpe originally chose her defence lawyers on the basis of their martial-sounding surnames: Sturm (Storm), Stahl (Steel), and Heer (Army), but she soon turned against them. Four years into the trial, she has finally found a young lawyer she likes. The two whisper and smile during the court proceedings. The main judge at the trial, Manfred Götzl, has ordered the state lawyers she fired to remain in the courtroom because their departure could be grounds for an appeal: he wants to fend off any claim by Zschäpe that her current lawyer does not have full knowledge of the trial. Sturm, Stahl, and Heer sit a few chairs down from Zschäpe in what appears a state of permanent listlessness. Behind Zschäpe sits Ralf Wohlleben, a neo-Nazi accused of providing Böhnhardt and Mundlos with the Česká pistol used in the murders. His lawyer, Nicole Schneiders, first appeared in police reports on the extreme right when she was just 16 years old. The members of the extreme-right have taken up different, coordinated positions in the Munich courtroom. The lawyers and the accused sit side by side, and greet each other with kisses on the cheek.
