Horst Seehofer: Interior Minister does not want to limit right-wing extremism study to the police

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Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CDU) in May 2020

Photo: Fabrizio Bensch / DPA

After the discovery of right-wing extremist chat groups by police officers in several federal states, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) continues to reject a study on racism in the police.

"What is needed here is a much broader approach for society as a whole," he told "Bild am Sonntag".

"We are working on this."

In addition, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution will present a report on racism and extremism in the security authorities at the end of September.

The question of such a study has been causing controversy in the federal government for months.

The SPD has already campaigned for it several times, even the Social Democratic Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht urged her cabinet colleague Seehofer to rethink.

The chairman of the conference of interior ministers, the Thuringian SPD politician Georg Maier, had previously promised a study by the social democratic federal states on racism among police officers.

The SPD interior ministers are in agreement that they want a study on the allegation of racism in the police - and "alone if necessary," he told the editorial network Germany.

There is even encouragement from the CDU: "In the summer I showed myself to be open to a nationwide study on the subject of racism," said the Interior Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Sabine Sütterlin-Waack, to SPIEGEL. 

Support for Seehofer

Meanwhile, Seehofer receives support from the deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, who says he does not believe in any significant gain in knowledge from studies on extremism among the police.

"We will not get any further with a study. Similar studies have quickly reached methodological limits in the past," said the CDU politician of the dpa news agency.

It is "relatively naive to believe that around 300,000 police officers indicate in surveys or sociological studies whether they have extremist attitudes".

Rather, Frei pleaded for a strong constitutional protection and strong security authorities with corresponding powers.

"If the SPD is serious about combating extremism, it must finally agree to the new constitutional protection law, which is supposed to give the security authorities important additional powers to combat right-wing extremism," said Frei.

In the past few months, right-wing extremism allegations against police officers have arisen in several federal states.

Among other things, police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia have been suspended from duty for alleged right-wing extremist activities.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, two officials were excluded from service.

In Frankfurt am Main, too, police officers with apparently right-wing extremist attitudes were noticed: five officers and one colleague, most of them from the 1st district in Frankfurt, shared such messages in the WhatsApp group "Itiotentreff".

Similar chat groups were also discovered in Offenburg and Munich.

The President of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Holger Münch, said that there had been six cases of right-wing extremism at the BKA in the past three years, "predominantly from the group of prospective detective officers".

In five of the six cases, the incidents led to the termination of the employment relationship, said Münch.

In the sixth case, measures under labor law were taken.

Münch recently expressed concern about the scandal in North Rhine-Westphalia (read a detailed report here).

"These are incidents that seriously undermine confidence in the police."

NRW Interior Minister spoke of a "shame for the NRW police".

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kha / Reuters / dpa / AFP