Attempted coup: Former Bundestag member testifies in “Reich Citizen” trial

After a break of around four weeks, the Frankfurt terror trial involving Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss has resumed. Former Bundestag member Birgit Malsack-Winkemann was the first of the defendants to comment in detail on the charges brought by the Federal Prosecutor General (GBA). The Darmstadt native sat in the Bundestag for the AfD from 2017 to 2021 and worked as a judge in Berlin for many years.

Criticism of the trial and distancing from co-defendants

Before the 60-year-old began her statements about the defendants in the three trials in Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart, she expressed her displeasure with the proceedings against the group. She described the trial as a story that had been blown up by the GBA, in which mostly older people were being held in custody without reason. “This is an unprecedented scandal,” she said on the 17th day of the trial. The charges could only have been the product of the GBA’s imagination; she could not explain it any other way.

Some of the defendants are also seriously ill or have health problems. “I don’t know how many more deaths you want to be held responsible for in this trial,” she said to presiding judge Jürgen Bonk, referring to the deceased defendant Norbert G.

Tour of the Bundestag

The Federal Prosecutor General accuses her of having infiltrated other defendants into the Bundestag and scouting out the buildings with them. She is said to have been a member of the association’s so-called council and to have been responsible for the justice department. She is also said to have actively tried to recruit other people for the association around Reuss.

“The tours of the Bundestag have absolutely nothing to do with everything that followed,” she stressed. It was a normal “tourist activity.” Malsack-Winkemann has guided hundreds of people through the Bundestag in her career and cannot even say whether certain members of the group were on a tour. She sees these tours as a service of a member of the Bundestag to the people.

According to the GBA, the group planned an armed storming of the Bundestag in order to arrest members of parliament and thus bring about the overthrow of the system. Malsack-Winkemann stressed: “There was no intention of ever storming the Bundestag. That is a fairy tale.” This coup was to follow the signal of the so-called alliance, which several defendants reported at the group’s meetings and allegedly had contacts with. Malsack-Winkemann described the alliance as a “hoax” and a “chimera”.

Three processes in parallel

In Frankfurt, nine defendants are accused of being members of a terrorist organization or of supporting it. The indictment says that the defendants knowingly accepted the risk of deaths during the planned coup. The defendants are presumed innocent until the verdict is reached. With two parallel trials in Munich and Stuttgart, a total of 26 suspected conspirators must answer for their actions in the complex. The trial will continue on Thursday (15 August at 9:30 a.m.).