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Bremen fire brigade during an operation
Photo: Sina Schuldt / dpa
In the Bremen professional fire brigade, officials are said to have exchanged racist and right-wing extremist content for years via internet chats.
The Bremen interior authority is investigating the allegations.
A special investigator had been appointed for the criminal and disciplinary investigations.
The public prosecutor's office is investigating a 52-year-old professional firefighter for sedition.
As the parliamentary group Die Linke announced in the Bremen citizenship, it is also about right-wing extremist structures.
Right-wing extremist content has been shared unhindered for years in chat groups of the Bremen fire brigade.
This was reported by several fire department employees, it said in a press release from the group.
According to this, fire service officers spread right-wing extremist pictures and messages in chat groups, including swastikas.
»The events known to date at the Bremen fire brigade are shocking.
We are aware of pictures and chat content that show significant criminal offenses, hate speech and massive racism back to 2015, ”said parliamentary group leader Sofia Leonidakis.
"The current investigation will show whether this has continued."
Suspicion of sedition and the use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations
The Bremen Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed investigations against a 52-year-old professional firefighter on suspicion of sedition and the use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations.
In this context, there was a search of the apartment, said the public prosecutor's office.
A colleague had made the authorities aware of the man.
The allegations should relate to 2015.
NDR, Radio Bremen and "Süddeutsche Zeitung" report testimony according to which the man showed a photo of his children in front of swastika flags at the office.
At work, according to statements, he often let himself be called by his nickname - also by radio or by superiors - based on a Nazi figure from the Nazi era.
According to this research, several firefighters are said to have made inhuman comments about colleagues and people in need, sometimes in their presence.
This emerges from chat logs and audio recordings that NDR, "Süddeutscher Zeitung" and Radio Bremen have available.
Witnesses reported that the events had been ignored for years despite complaints at the management level of the Bremen fire brigade.
The minutes of the chat group went back to 2013. Some men had sent swastika pictures, photos of Adolf Hitler and racist, inhuman sayings about blacks, Turks, Muslims and Jews over the years.
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