{"id":276,"date":"2006-06-13T10:51:19","date_gmt":"2006-06-13T14:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/letter-from-munich-108\/"},"modified":"2006-06-13T10:51:19","modified_gmt":"2006-06-13T14:51:19","slug":"letter-from-munich-108","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/letter-from-munich-108\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Munich – 108"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letter from Munich – the Joseph Affair \u2013 108<\/strong><\/p>\n

EINE DEUTSCHE FASSUNG STEHT WEITER UNTEN. (German translation below \u2013 German language character set required for correct display.)<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.joseph_affair.blogspot.com <\/p>\n

31 January 2003 <\/p>\n

Dear Mr. Graf, dear friends,<\/p>\n

My friend continued reading the transcript of Daniel Steiner\u2019s interrogation. Daniel had said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve mentioned the names. What should I do now?<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestion: Tell what happened. Tell what you remember about what happened and how that fits in with the names you just mentioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestion: And then\u2026, should I say the names? Should I say the names?<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestion: Just say it, just say what happened on that day. Not the things you had told to you, but what happened at the pool!\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend paused a moment. \u201cHere we have something else remarkable in this transcript,\u201d he said. \u201cNotice the policeman\u2019s words: \u2018Not the things you had told to you.\u2019 The things he had told to him? When? And by whom? By Joseph\u2019s parents? By other policemen, as Daniel waited three hours and forty-five minutes for the interrogation to begin? And why should a police even suggest that Daniel \u2018had things told to him.\u2019 I have to say once more that I find it quite remarkable that in a democracy a fifteen-year-old boy can be forced to submit to such an interrogation without a lawyer being present, unless of course the police were intent not on getting to the truth, but on getting the answers they were expected to get, by the authorities, for political reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued reading:<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestion: Just say it, just say what happened on that day. Not the things you had told to you, but what happened at the pool!<\/p>\n

\u201cAnswer: So then people came and really gave it to him, to Joseph. I mean, they insulted him, \u2018You shit-foreigner.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend said, \u201cNotice the words that the boy uses here. \u2018They really gave it to him,\u2019 and he means that they insulted him. The choice of words is interesting, because the word that Daniel used in German, \u2018beloeffeln,\u2019 doesn\u2019t mean simply \u2018to give.\u2019 It means \u2018to feed with a spoon.\u2019 So what Daniel says isn\u2019t merely that \u2018they really gave it to him,\u2019 but he uses the slang expression \u2018feed with a spoon\u2019 to mean that they insulted him \u2013 can we also say \u2018abused\u2019 him? All this is particularly significant in view of the fact that the authorities tried right from the beginning to suppress the idea that it might be true that Joseph\u2019s murderers had forced the child to drink some kind of tranquilizing drug. So you wonder what Daniel was really saying by using this word \u2018beloeffeln.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on reading:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnswer: So then people came and really gave it to him, to Joseph. I mean, they insulted him, \u2018You shit-foreigner.\u2019 So then they sort of annoyed him and went. Then they came back again and picked him up and went at him and then they dragged him to Thalheim\u2019s kiosk. And then they gave him something. Then they went to the water in back and threw him in.\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend said, \u201cSo here we have, essentially, what Daniel said in his questioning before the judge in Dresden.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued reading:<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestion: And who was that exactly?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnswer: I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnswer: You don\u2019t know the people?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnswer: No.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestion: Good, let\u2019s go on talking about the names, especially those written down in the transcript of the questioning before the judge in Dresden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continued next week.<\/p>\n

Sincerely yours,<\/p>\n

Robert John Bennett<\/p>\n

——————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n

Since many recipients of this letter may read German more easily than they read English, the following is the author\u2019s translation of the above letter. Please note that word-processing programs outside of German-speaking countries may not display all of the letters of the German alphabet correctly.<\/p>\n

Alle Briefe aus M\u00fcnchen sind abrufbar: http:\/\/www.joseph_affair.blogspot.com <\/p>\n

M\u00fcnchen, den 31. Januar 2003<\/p>\n

Sehr geehrter Herr Graf, sehr geehrte Freunde,<\/p>\n

Mein Freund fuhr fort das Protokoll der Vernehmung von Daniel Steiner vorzulesen, Daniel hatte gesagt:<\/p>\n

\u201eIch habe ja gesagt, die Namen und so, wie soll ich jetzt machen?<\/p>\n

Frage: Was dort abgelaufen ist. An was du dich erinnerst, was dort abgelaufen ist und dann, wie das mit den Namen zusammenh\u00e4ngt.<\/p>\n

Antwort: Und dann\u2026, soll ich die Namen sagen? Soll ich die Namen sagen?<\/p>\n

Frage: Erz\u00e4hle es freiweg, was an dem Tag passiert ist. Nicht was du gesagt bekommen hast, sondern was im Bad stattgefunden hat!\u201c<\/p>\n

Mein Freund hielt einen Augenblick inne. \u201eHier habe wir noch etwas Merkw\u00fcrdiges in diesem Protokoll\u201c, sagte er. \u201eBeachten Sie die Worte des Polizisten: \u201aNicht was du gesagt bekommen hast\u2019. Gesagt bekommen hast? Wann? Und von wem? Von Josephs Eltern? Von anderen Polizisten, als Daniel drei Stunden f\u00fcnfundvierzig Minuten auf den Beginn der Vernehmung gewartet hat? Und warum sollte ein Polizist \u00fcberhaupt davon ausgehen, dass Daniel etwas \u201agesagt bekommen hat\u2019? Noch einmal muss ich sagen, dass ich es merkw\u00fcrdig finde, dass in einer Demokratie ein f\u00fcnfzehnj\u00e4hriger Junge dazu gezwungen werden kann, sich ohne einen Rechtsanwalt so einer Vernehmung zu unterziehen, es sei denn, die Polizei wollte nicht die Wahrheit, sondern die Antworten, die die Obrigkeiten aus politische Zweckm\u00e4\u00dfigkeit erwarteten\u201c.<\/p>\n

Er fuhr fort vorzulesen:<\/p>\n

\u201eFrage: Erz\u00e4hle es freiweg, was an dem Tag passiert ist. Nicht was du gesagt bekommen hast, sondern was im Bad stattgefunden hat!<\/p>\n

Antwort: Also dann kamen Leute und haben den bel\u00f6ffelt, den Josef, also beleidigt \u201adu Schei\u00df-Ausl\u00e4nder\u2019\u201c.<\/p>\n

Mein Freund sagte, \u201eBemerken Sie die Worte, die der Junge verwendet, \u201aSie haben den bel\u00f6ffelt\u2019, und er meint, dass sie Joseph beleidigt haben. Ich finde die Worte, die Daniel ausgesucht hat, besonders bedeutsam, angesichts der Tatsache, dass die Beh\u00f6rden von Anfang an versuchten, die Vorstelllung zu unterdrucken, dass es wahr sei, dass Josephs M\u00f6rder das Kind dazu gezwungen hatten, irgendein Bet\u00e4ubungsmittel zu trinken. Also man fragt sich, was Daniel mit \u201abel\u00f6ffeln\u2019 wirklich sagen wollte.\u201c<\/p>\n

Er fuhr fort, vorzulesen:<\/p>\n

\u201eAntwort: Also dann kamen Leute und haben den bel\u00f6ffelt, den Josef, also beleidigt \u201adu Schei\u00df-Ausl\u00e4nder\u2019. So, dann haben die den ge\u00e4rgert und so und dann sind die wieder gegangen. Dann kamen sie wieder and dann haben sie den so hochgenommen, so angesackt und dann habe sie den zu \u201aThalheims\u2019 geschleppt. Und dann haben sie dem was gegeben. So, dann sind sie zum Wasser hinter und dann haben sie ihn reingeschmissen.\u201c<\/p>\n

Mein Freund sagte, \u201eAlso hier haben wir wesentlich das, was Daniel w\u00e4hrend der Vernehmung von der Richterin in Dresden ausgesagt hatte\u201c.<\/p>\n

Er fuhr fort vorzulesen:<\/p>\n

Zwischenfrage: Was waren das f\u00fcr welche?<\/p>\n

Antwort: Das wei\u00df ich eben nicht.<\/p>\n

Frage: Die Leute kennen Sie nicht?<\/p>\n

Antwort: Nein.<\/p>\n

Frage: Gut machen wir mal dort weiter, wie es jetzt zu den Namen kommt, wie in dem, vor allen Dingen auch in der richterlichen Vernehmung, niedergeschrieben sind\u201c.<\/p>\n

Fortsetzung n\u00e4chste Woche.<\/p>\n

Mit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen<\/p>\n

Robert John Bennett<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letter from Munich – the Joseph Affair \u2013 108 EINE DEUTSCHE FASSUNG STEHT WEITER UNTEN. (German translation below \u2013 German language character set required for correct display.) http:\/\/www.joseph_affair.blogspot.com 31 January 2003 Dear Mr. Graf, dear friends, My friend continued reading the transcript of Daniel Steiner\u2019s interrogation. Daniel had said: \u201cI\u2019ve mentioned the names. What should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-276","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/munichletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}