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Defendant Ernst (right) with his defense attorney Kaplan: How big was Stephan Ernst's hatred?
Photo: POOL / REUTERS
January 6, 2016 is said to have been a special day in Stephan Ernst's life.
In the trial of Walter Lübcke's murder, Ernst described how the incidents on New Year's Eve 2015 in Cologne had aroused his anger and fear of "foreign infiltration" in the first few days of 2016.
According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, Ernst was in a highly aggressive state on January 6th.
Stephan Ernst is said to have yelled at a man in the Forstfeld district of Kassel who he thought was a foreigner: "You'd have to have your neck cut open!"
On the same evening he is said to have rammed a knife in the back of Ahmad E., a 23-year-old asylum seeker from Iraq, while riding a bicycle and fled.
A driver found Ahmad E., looked after him and notified an emergency doctor.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office is convinced that Ernst wanted to act out his extremist hatred of refugees by attacking Ahmad E.
Through the arbitrary selection, he wanted to stir up fear among people of foreign origin seeking protection so that they could leave Germany again.
Stephan Ernst is therefore - in addition to the murder of Walter Lübcke - also charged with attempted murder.
The 46-year-old denies the attack on the Iraqi.
How violent is Stephan Ernst?
Stephan Ernst is considered a loner.
In the trial against him before the Frankfurt am Main Higher Regional Court, the Senate tries to find out what serious person is, at least through contacts that the father could not avoid.
How great was his hatred of migrants and the politics of the federal government?
How violent is he?
When did he radicalize himself?
Was it foreseeable that one day he would take up arms and kill someone?
Holger M. is invited as a witness.
He enters the courtroom and raises his left hand in greeting, Stephan Ernst nods back with a tight expression on his face.
M. knows Stephan Ernst from work, the two of them worked together for a company for 16 years.
M. is still employed there today.
Always the same shift, machine next to machine.
Ernst was one of the few "people with whom you could talk about politics," says M. He knows that Ernst was an NPD member, posted posters for the AfD and attended their regulars' tables.
Ernst called for "all foreigners to be put on a plane and let out over the Mediterranean".
But he "differentiated": he only meant the criminal migrants and those without the right to stay.
When he was interrogated by the police, M. had stated that Ernst had a "pronounced hatred of foreigners" and had demanded that "all foreigners be shot or driven out of the country with clubs".
In the court, M. hesitantly confirmed his answers from then until Judge Christoph Koller asked him to "use his memory".
Ernst attacked colleagues twice
M. now remembers that Ernst once told him about an incident.
Accordingly, Ernst, on his way to work, possibly after the night shift, was pelted with stones by an unknown person.
He had "given the stranger one with him" that he had "fallen into the ditch".
Was that the modified version of the attack on Ahmad E.?
At the time, Ernst said nothing about a "foreigner", says M.
The former colleague describes Ernst as unapproachable, reserved, as someone he was not afraid of, but had respect.
When asked, he confirmed that he had described him to the police as a character with an "aggressive streak": "Like a wild animal in lurking position and like a powder keg with a short fuse."
Colleagues got to feel that, says M. "He could be physical."
He knew of two incidents in which Ernst "pushed" colleagues.
He did not trust Ernst to "plan and carry out" an assassination attempt.
"That he goes to extremes and executes a politician," says M., no, that doesn't suit Stephan.
"I rate him more as a doer than a planner."
A sentence that supports the assessment of the federal prosecutor's office, which Ernst sees as the perpetrator of the murder of Walter Lübcke, the co-defendant Markus H., however, as agitator and instigator.
The witness does not claim to have noticed any radicalization
The colleague only found out about Ernst's criminal history including his stay in jail after the murder of Walter Lübcke, as he says.
Ernst also showed him the video of the citizens' meeting in Lohfelden on his mobile phone, on which Walter Lübcke wanted to prepare the residents for an initial reception facility.
M. does not want to have noticed a political change, a radicalization in Ernst in all these 16 years.
But Ernst was worried, M. keeps saying.
He was worried about his family and his country.
Holger M., 55 years old, trained toolmaker, born and raised in the GDR, has been working for the company in Kassel for almost 30 years.
In the course of the survey it becomes clear that he too seems to be concerned.
Once he was persuaded by Ernst to take part in a Kagida meeting: "Kassel against the Islamization of the West," an offshoot of the Pegida movement.
He was, however, disappointed: too few people, suspicious characters and in the end the Antifa "got on their skin".
"But I'm not a Nazi."
Holger M.
At the end of this day of negotiations, Mustafa Kaplan, Ernst's defense attorney, is on his mind and asks which political corner M. is actually himself in?
"I am critical of the government and do not approve of everything that the government does to the people. But I am not a Nazi."
- "No political corner is critical of the government: rather left or right?"
- "Middle right."
- "Can you tie that to a party? CDU?"
- "No."
- "Suggest something!"
- "If so: AfD."
Kaplan asks whether M. had already distributed newspapers at work.
That is correct, says M., the "Junge Freiheit".
- "What kind of newspaper is that?"
- "One that says what's going on."
- "About which topic?"
- "To politics."
- "Which corner is the 'Junge Freiheit'?"
- "It shows how it is. Politically neutral."
- "Middle right?"
- "Yes."
- "For you, is AfD center-right?"
- "Yes."
The "Junge Freiheit" is a national weekly newspaper that experts call the "mouthpiece of the New Right".
M. is also said to have distributed the magazine "Compact" at work, which presents itself as an AfD and Pegida mouthpiece.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution lists the magazine as a suspected case.
"The general press, in other words the mainstream, has drifted green-left."
Holger M.
Kaplan asks: "Is Compact also center-right?"
- "Middle right."
- "You brought that to work?"
- "I put it down, yes. Stephan once suggested the magazine to me. It provides comprehensive information. The general press, ie the mainstream, has drifted green-left."
M. looks slightly annoyed.
He found Walter Lübcke's statement at that citizens' meeting in Lohfelden "also unhappy" and believes it triggered something in Stephan Ernst.
"But I did not encourage or encourage him to commit such an act, should the question arise."
The question doesn't come.
The trial will continue on Thursday.
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