According to a report by the ARD magazine "Monitor", the Berlin police determined that there was a racist chat group in the ranks of the authority, in their own ranks.
"According to the information that we were able to take from the current media coverage, a chat group was uncovered in which content that was subject to discipline and punishable by law was shared," the police said in the morning.
"With knowledge of the facts, we immediately initiated criminal proceedings and started investigations," it said.
This included "research into the content of the news, the duration of the group's existence, the number of users and the departments concerned".
Racists have "no place in our ranks and in the police in general".
Because it is "unbearable to know those among us who, because of their origin, rise above others and damage the reputation of an entire profession."
There are hundreds of suspected cases nationwide
According to the "Monitor" report, it is said to be the internal chat of a service group of the Berlin police, in which more than 25 officers are said to have written messages.
Above all, seven officials regularly made clear racist comments, often in the form of supposed jokes, the report says.
Colleagues often commented on the statements with approval.
A supervisor of the group had been informed about racist statements in the chat.
In an email, he asked the officials not to share any criminally relevant content, but otherwise did not intervene.
more on the subject
Media report: Several right-wing extremism suspects work for the NRW constitution protection
Protection of the Constitution: 350 suspected right-wing extremism cases in German security authorities
Leipzig: Policeman suspended from duty after right-wing extremist statements
Berlin's Senator for the Interior, Andreas Geisel (SPD), announced according to "Monitor": "If the allegations prove to be true, this is absolutely unacceptable and has nothing to do with a modern, cosmopolitan capital police force."
In the past few months, right-wing extremist incidents in security authorities had repeatedly caused a stir.
In mid-September, a right-wing extremist chat group within the police was uncovered in North Rhine-Westphalia.
A SPIEGEL survey in the summer had already shown that there had been at least 340 suspected cases in the countries since 2014
of right-wing extremist, racist or anti-Semitic activities among police officers and police candidates.
In the Federal Police there were 73 since 2012. "Reichsbürger" in uniform can also be found among these cases, in Bavaria alone there were 18, in the Federal Police twelve.
Icon: The mirror
bbr / dpa