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34 police stations and private homes were registered in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The reason is chat groups in which law enforcement officers have spread far-right propaganda, writes DW.
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Local Interior Minister Herbert Royle said there were more than 100 images, including photos of Adolf Hitler, broken crosses, military flags and a collage of a refugee in a gas chamber in a concentration camp. Police stations and homes in the cities of Duisburg, Essen, Moers, Mülheim and Oberhausen were searched.
29 police officers were fired
Eleven police officers are under investigation for incitement to hatred. They shared the images in question with far-right content. The North Rhine-Westphalia Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the collected material as “strong right-wing extremists”. Disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against 29 police officers, all of whom have been suspended.
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The chats were found on a mobile phone during another investigation, for revealing an official secret to a journalist. According to Herbert Royle, one of the groups has existed since 2012 and another since 2015.
“We are not going to complain, we will act”
The Interior Minister for North Rhine-Westphalia has said he has no plans to resign, despite calls. Almost 50,000 people work for the police in Germany’s most populous province, he explained. “We are the best in the country,” Royle said, assuring that he would not allow the police to have “people who share far-right views. Those people should be expelled.” In an interview with WDR, the minister described what happened “Shame on the North Rhine-Westphalia police”.
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“Extremely alarming”
The cabinet of German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer described the revelations as a “slap in the face” for all policemen loyal to the democratic order. The information is “extremely alarming,” the Seehofer administration said.
