ExtremismGerman police under the pall of right-wing extremists
German security experts warn about the lax, ineffective way in which German security authorities have dealt with the growing presence of extreme far-right elements in police ranks, calling the rejectionist attitude of the police leadership dangerous. This is consistent with findings from Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). On 9 July, Interior Minister Seehofer presented the BfV’s 2019 annual report. He spoke of sharp rises in anti-Semitic, right-wing extremist and racist crimes in Germany, and called right-wing extremism the country’s greatest security threat.
The perpetrator called himself “SS Obersturmbannführer” (lieutenant colonel) — a reference to the most gruesome chapter in German history. Persons of that rank in Nazi Germany were responsible for organizing the abuse and murder of millions of Jews from across Europe.
This year — 2020 — German cabaret artist Idil Baydar received a death threat from someone using that moniker. Baydar is a successful entertainer who takes a scalpel to the daily racism immigrants face in Germany. Not only do her acts make millions of Germans laugh, they also make them reflect.
The death threats case against Baydar is not only unsettling, it is politically explosive as well. That is because the perpetrator’s trail can be traced directly back to the German police. The death threat Idil Baydar received contained personal information retrieved from a police computer in the state of Hesse.
Death Threats directly Died to Police Computer
Baydar first found out she was being surveilled in the newspaper: “I find it really strange that the police haven’t contacted me. That no one says, ‘Don’t worry, we have this under control. We will keep you safe.’ I feel so alone. The threat posed to me doesn’t seem to interest the police,” she said in an interview with the German daily newspaper Tageszeitung.
But the case is not the first of this kind: Many politicians from Germany’s Left Party have received similar threats since 2018. And in those cases, too, information about personal history was retrieved from a police computer in Hesse. Meanwhile, state prosecutors have opened an investigation. On Tuesday, Hesse Police President Udo Münch resigned. Now, Interior Minister Peter Beuth has come under pressure.
Beuth says it is possible there is a network of right-wing extremists in the force. “I expect the Hesse Police to leave no stone unturned in refuting that suspicion,” said Beuth at a press conference. He also announced he would be appointing a special investigator.
Such cases have stirred debate across Germany, with people asking: Is there structural racism among police? Have right-wing networks hostile to the government been established among the ranks?
