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Defendant Markus H. (archive): "He never wanted to swim with the crowd"
Photo: Thomas Lohnes / dpa
The State Security Senate of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main has been trying to solve the murder of Walter Lübcke since June.
In addition to the alleged main culprit Stephan Ernst, Markus H. is also charged with allegedly being the intellectual arsonist.
He is said to have stirred up and instigated Ernst until he went to the terrace of the Lübcke family in Wolfhagen-Istha in Hesse on the night of June 2, 2019 and shot the Kassel district president from a short distance.
Markus H. is silent.
He said nothing about the allegations in the preliminary investigation, and he also says nothing in court.
Presumably in the hope that the evidence will not be sufficient to convict him of complicity in the murder of the CDU politician.
His chances get worse that day: his ex-girlfriend Lisa-Marie D. is invited as a witness, the two have a four-year-old daughter together.
During her interrogation by the police, D. drew a picture of her former partner, which should have supported and supplemented the assessment of the Federal Prosecutor's Office.
The 31-year-old does not initially waste a look to the left to her ex-boyfriend.
Markus H. seems amused when he sees the woman, with whom he has had a custody battle for years, hobbling into the hall because of a knee injury on a crutch.
Markus H. is a "right-wing extremist and citizen of the Reich"
Lisa-Marie D. and he met in 2014 on an internet platform, became a couple in spring 2015 and kept a distance for two years: Markus H. stayed in his apartment in Kassel, Lisa-Marie D. in hers in Diemelsee , a municipality in the north of Hesse.
After the birth of their child, the two moved away, so it sounds, at an amazing speed.
Markus H. seems to have had his problems with the role of the father.
The couple separated in July 2017.
When H. got his workbench and welding equipment from D's apartment, he is said to have brought a friend with him: Stephan Ernst.
Lisa-Marie D. is a trained gardener and landscaper who worked in a security company, was allowed to carry a weapon, and is currently looking for work.
She has tattooed the backs of her hands and, when asked by the court, said she wore many other tattoos.
Motif: "Dogs, dogs, dogs."
And then there would be the words "My loyalty is honor", an oath, she assures, that only applies to her dogs.
Senior Public Prosecutor Dieter Killmer reminds you of the tattooed Viking ship and a forbidden rune related to National Socialism.
D. avoids a commitment to the right-wing scene.
It only admits that it is politically "fundamentally right" today.
However, she rejects violence.
Later that day it turns out that she used to wear a swastika on her leg, which is now "over-tattooed".
The political attitude seems to have only been a subliminal foundation of her relationship with H.
Rather, D. impressed that H. - "a right-wing extremist and citizen of the Reich" - was "the sole determiner of his life".
"He never wanted to swim with the crowd. That attracted me, I was more of a crowd."
Markus H. called himself "Stadtreiniger" on the Internet
It was only a matter of time before she realized that this unique selling point was mutating into the biggest problem in their partnership.
She describes H. as a "very calm loner" with "psychopathic impulses" and pronounced contempt for women;
as a narcissist who manipulates those around him.
As an example, she describes: "He throws the word 'asylum seekers' into the room, thereby initiating a debate, remains grinning and watches."
Markus H. was also on the Internet under the pseudonym "Stadtreiniger".
He chose the name symbolically, says D. He wanted to cleanse the city and the country of "foreign infiltration".
At home he slept on the sofa because otherwise there was no space;
he had bought poison dart frogs, poisonous snakes and cobras under a false name, some of which died after a few days.
D. initially accepted his affinity for weapons and even found pleasure in it himself.
Through H. she got into shooting sports and remembers joint shooting exercises on the shooting range in the "Schützenclub 1952 Sandershausen eV" and in the sports shooting club "Germania Cassel" (SSG) in Grebenstein.
It was there that she met Stephan Ernst, whom she found likeable.
Weapons had top priority in H's life, says D. His motto was: "We Germans have to arm ourselves: In the USA everyone has the right to own a weapon. We Germans are prevented from defending ourselves."
H. was convinced that "the Germans would be exchanged by asylum seekers".
He spoke of "Umvolkung".
He is said to have manufactured the ammunition with which H. shot himself with the help of a reloading press for reloading cartridges.
"Live your life as you want"
According to his ex-girlfriend, H. not only handled weapons, but also experimented with explosives.
He is said to have ordered the necessary chemicals in their name on the Internet, manufactured New Year's Eve bollards and set off test explosions.
Once H. announced to her that in the event of a serious illness he would make an explosives belt and "take as many Kanaks as possible with her to her death".
"Only then did I do something right once in my life," said H.
"Kanaken stands for what?" Asks the presiding judge Thomas Sagebiel.
"For foreigners."
There was "always this aversion" that H. felt towards foreigners and Jews, says D. His girlfriends should only be European, he explained to her.
In a dispute he alleged that Stephan Ernst had once advised him to look for a "Russian-German" like Ernst.
"At least she shut up and is loyal", and as a man you can "go on living your life as you want".
"Both were hard to hold."
Lisa-Marie D. on the two defendants
"Big friends" were the two, D. had testified during a police interrogation.
They assume - should Ernst have planned the attack on Walter Lübcke - that H. was in on the plan.
The woman puts this into perspective in court: "The two were honest with each other, they harmonized."
Especially when it came to asylum policy in Germany.
She does not want to be able to judge which of the two was more dominant.
The evening of October 14, 2015 plays an important role in the murder of Walter Lübcke.
Lisa-Marie D. remembers: Back then, Markus H. attended a meeting with Stephan Ernst in the community center in Lohfelden near Kassel.
There Walter Lübcke spoke about the initial reception facility for refugees in an empty hardware store and drew the anger of some listeners.
Especially that of the two defendants.
Ernst is "completely crazy"
Markus H. was "beside himself", says D. He showed her the video that he filmed at the event and said that he wanted to make the excerpt with Lübcke's quote "absolutely public".
"Both were almost impossible to hold," remembers D. Ernst, "completely screwed up," H. told her.
Judge Lars Rhode holds up to D. what she said to the police: H. said at the time that Walter Lübcke had to be "hanged".
"Yes, that's right," says D. in court.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office is likely to interpret this statement as a clear willingness to use violence on the part of the accused.
Likewise, an image file that was saved on his computer: It shows the Chancellor as a target from a distance of 25 meters.
In his confession, Ernst stated how H. had once brought that target with him to target practice and announced that he would also create one with Walter Lübcke's likeness.
After the citizens' meeting in Lohfelden, they "incited" each other, says D. on the day of the negotiations.
She too was annoyed and rushed at Lübcke's words.
Judge Christoph Koller speaks to her about the custody dispute with Markus H.
It could be that D. deliberately wanted to put her ex-boyfriend in a bad light in order to get sole custody.
The witness reacts calmly.
Long before the "disaster with Dr. Lübcke", she pulled the emergency brake and sought a parenting level with H.
However, his hatred of her is greater than his interest in their daughter.
Koller wants to know why this is so.
"I'm just as bad a woman for him as his mother."
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