In North Rhine-Westphalia, 29 police officers have been suspended from duty because they are said to have been involved in right-wing extremist chat groups. “This is a shame for the NRW police,” said the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, while the Passauer Neue Presse thinks that the democratic state cannot afford extremists in uniform. Our look in the newspapers.
“The whole thing is ‘a shame'”, comments the TAGESSPIEGEL. Unfortunately, no surprise, and certainly not an isolated case. The problem lies deeper. In structures that are designed so that police officers cover each other. That superiors don’t look closely because they may think similarly. We haven’t only known since it became known that police officers may also be involved in the affair involving threatening emails from the right-wing extremist sender ‘NSU 2.0’. “
The RHEINPFALZ from Ludwigshafen criticized the fact that North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul of the CDU had said that he initially did not want to believe that there was such a thing. “How naive! There is by no means a lack of similar incidents in offices elsewhere. Of course, that does not mean that all police officers can now be accused of an anti-state sentiment. Most of them do an impeccable job. But why such excesses keep coming up must finally be systematically investigated Dutiful indignation is no longer enough. “
The DARMSTÄDTER ECHO says: “Too many incidents in too many places indicate that there may still be no strategic right-wing extremist network that acts across national borders. But apparently at least identical thought patterns in too many places. The question of how far they are widespread is just as important as the question of how they arise. “
“In the long run it is not expedient to just point out that 99 percent of the police are doing an excellent job,” believes the PASSAUER NEUE PRESSE. “The remaining one percent of black – or brown – sheep is too much because even small numbers of sympathizers of right-wing extremism cause excessive damage to the reputation of ‘friends and helpers’. The German constitutional state and its citizens depend on it The guarantee of public security remains linked with a sincere commitment to the liberal values of this country. The suspicion that law enforcement officials only pretend to be committed to democracy and civil rights has a devastating effect, even when there are exceptions. The democratic state cannot afford extremists in uniform. “
KÖLNER STADT-ANZEIGER writes: “The image files show swastikas, Hitler pictures and Reich war flags. A photomontage shows a refugee in the gas chamber of a concentration camp. The unbearable pictures have apparently been sent back and forth since 2012. But the scandal only got through Coincidence unearthed. No one supposedly noticed that an entire service group of patrol officers in Mülheim an der Ruhr carried right-wing extremist ideas. That is a shame for the NRW police. “
The PFORZHEIMER TAGESZEITUNG clarifies: “The following applies to all civil servants: They have sworn an oath on the constitution. Whoever is supposed to protect the state and its people, but secretly despises and corrupts it, is playing a dangerous game with social peace – and has in the Police not to be searched. After the revelations in North Rhine-Westphalia, it is therefore time to question whether there is a structural problem. For this, a situation picture of right-wing extremism would be urgently required, which goes beyond the mere listing of cases. Whoever names things relentlessly and analyzes also knows what to do. “
“Why do such incidents happen again and again?” Asks the FRANKENPOST from Hof and demands: “It is high time that the study on racist attitudes among the police, which was so strictly rejected by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), is drawn up. The citizens have a right to these confidence-building measures – and so do the police. “
This message was broadcast on September 16, 2020 on Deutschlandfunk.
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