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Police headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia (archive picture)
Photo: Rupert Oberhäuser / imago images / Rupert Oberhäuser
About a year after right-wing extremist suspected cases became known to the police in North Rhine-Westphalia, this suspicion has been confirmed in 53 cases.
The Ministry of the Interior in Düsseldorf announced this to the dpa news agency upon request.
The cases have already been finally examined and punished.
The consequences were mostly of an official nature: Six commissioner candidates had been dismissed.
The interior ministry announced a few weeks ago that there were two dismissals and three warnings in the labor law proceedings.
The suspicion was not confirmed in 84 clues, according to a current balance sheet.
They were also finally checked.
If there are 138 remaining clues, the examination is still ongoing.
From 2017 to the end of September this year, the North Rhine-Westphalian police authorities had reported 275 suspected cases.
The scandal surrounding right-wing extremist chat groups in the police force had widened more and more in the past year.
The forbidden Horst Wessel song was found on confiscated data storage media.
This is the battle song of the SA and the later party anthem of the NSDAP.
An official is said to have posted photos of Christmas tree baubles with SS runes and "Sieg Heil" inscription.
Another officer had found photos with a swastika that had been laid out of service ammunition.
A police officer in uniform had himself photographed standing on two patrol cars showing the "Hitler salute".
Under criminal law, the police officers concerned usually got away with a clean slate because the judiciary classified the WhatsApp chats as private communication.
Relevant criminal offenses such as the dissemination of unconstitutional labels did not take effect.
kha / dpa
