After a series of right-wing extremist incidents and whistleblower warnings, the Ministry of Defense is going to tackle the army’s German elite unit, the Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK). A command within the KSK is immediately lifted, international exercises are immediately canceled. Elite soldiers who are currently abroad are brought back to Germany.
The KSK has been in the news in recent years due to right-wing extremist incidents. Three years ago, the story came out that KSK soldiers at Hit parties salute the Hitler salute and listen to right-wing extremist music. In recent times, a KSK soldier was arrested, among other things, because he had built up a weapons arsenal at home and would prepare for an attack.
Culture of looking away
In early June, an officer in the unit sent a letter of fire to the Secretary of Defense in which he wrote that there was a culture of looking away. Right-wing extremist views would be ignored and even tolerated.
One of the trainers is said to be openly neo-Nazi and nicknamed himself Y-88, 88 stands for ‘Heil Hitler’, with h as the eighth letter of the alphabet. The trainer was only fired after more than ten years. These are no exceptions, according to the officer. He called on the minister to tackle the ‘uncontrollable swamp’.
The ministry has submitted to the KSK a list of more than 60 requirements for reform. Not only is the unit dissolved and international missions scrapped, all soldiers are also questioned again about their views.
Furthermore, there will be more supervision of the training and the weapons stocks will be more strictly controlled. Inspections revealed that tens of thousands of ammunition and kilos of explosives had been lost. Military intelligence must also cooperate with the ‘ordinary’ secret service.
Self-cleaning ability
The problem with right-wing extremism has been going on for a long time and something really needs to change now, the ministry thinks. “If the KSK does not prove that it has a self-cleaning ability, the question is whether it should continue to exist in this form,” State Secretary of Defense Tauber writes in the letter to the Bundestag. The unit has until October to make improvements.
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