The 49-year-old woman from Flensburg, who has not been named, has admitted the baby girl was hers and said she was “in a state of complete exhaustion and hopelessness” at the time. It was not clear whether the baby was alive or dead when placed in the freezer.

State prosecutor Ulrike Stahlmann-Liebelt is handling the case, and told Tuesday’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that the baby “had arrived as a fully formed, living newborn.” She added that the husband had not known at the time that the baby had been born, let alone died.

She would not say if there were signs of violence on the corpse, but did reveal that the death was being treated as manslaughter.

The couple already had three, now fully grown, children and divorced in 2009, prosecutors said. The husband had gone to his ex-wife’s house which they used to share to defrost her freezer.

She has been released pending further investigation.

AFP/The Local/jcw