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Almost an entire service group, including the chief, has been suspended from service in the Ruhr area. The officers exchanged photographs of Hitler and swastikas in talks.
Police officers should be politically neutral: forces from North Rhine-Westphalia at a demonstration against Crown policy in Berlin in late August.
Photo: Christian Mang (Reuters)
North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul was visibly and audibly shocked when he brought bad news to the media in Düsseldorf on Wednesday. The Christian Democrat spoke of an “embarrassment to the police” and that the state authority was beaten “to the core” by the accusations. Nothing less than the confidence of citizens in the rule of law is in doubt.
In the morning, 200 police officers searched three dozen apartments and offices in the Ruhr area and, as an exception, investigated professional colleagues. According to Reul, 29 police officers are suspected of sharing right-wing extremist propaganda in private chat groups. About half of the police officers participated actively, the other half probably only read the posts.
Clear edge to the right: the Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul (CDU).
Photo: Leon Kügeler (Reuters)
It is not about trivia, but about “the worst and most disgusting agitation”: photographs of Hitler, swastikas, but also, for example, the fictitious representation of a refugee in a gas chamber. One of the five chat groups was probably established in 2012, the others probably in 2015.
The 29 police officers were suspended from their duties that morning. At least 14 civil servants are going to be dismissed from the service, against 11 who already have a case of “sedition”. 25 of the 29 officers belonged to a single protection group in Mülheim an der Ruhr. The service group leader also participated in the talks.
Discovered by accident
The group crossed paths by chance. Investigators had seized a private cell phone from a police officer they suspected of having revealed official secrets to journalists. Then they found the chats on the cell phone. Reul hopes that evaluations of more cell phones will increase the number of suspects.
Reports of right-wing extremists to the police have increased significantly over the past two years. For months Leftist artists, politicians and lawyers are threatened with the title “NSU 2.0”, the letters probably come from police circles. In Frankfurt am Main, Baden-Württemberg and Munich, chat groups have recently emerged in which several dozen active and former police officers spread racist and anti-Semitic propaganda.
These are no longer isolated cases. “
Since in Germany the Ministry of the Interior and the Protection of the Constitution identified right-wing extremism as the biggest threat today, is also examined more closely by the police and the army. And the more closely the authorities look, the more cases are known. The “Spiegel” recently estimated the number of known cases to the police since 2014 at 400.
“These are no longer isolated cases,” Reul said of his own state, as we will have to look more closely in the future. Therefore, he has already commissioned a special inspection of the most affected presidium and will also appoint a special representative for right-wing extremism in the police. “There is also zero tolerance for right-wing extremists in the police,” Reul said. This is mainly due to the more than 50,000 police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia, who are firmly rooted in the basic order of free democracy.
