SPIEGEL: Hessen is in the headlines month after month for right-wing extremist acts. The murder of Walter Lübcke, neo-Nazi pictures in chats of the police, the racist attack in Wächtersbach. Is Hesse the new right-wing problem country?
Beuth: No. These events are terrible, each for themselves. But they have to be considered individually and are not directly related. I can only say again and again that we investigate each and every one of these cases intensively.
SPIEGEL: The alleged Lübcke murderer Stephan Ernst was repeatedly on for right-wing extremist offenses, 2010, there was still a relevant judgment against him. How can it be that he then simply disappears from the radar of the Hessian security agencies?
Beuth: We can only rate each person, whether extremist or not, by actions and activities. If these people do not appear for a certain period of time, they will no longer be on the radar of the authorities at some point. After five years, the data and files will be deleted. That's the legal framework. But we want to start now.
SPIEGEL: How?
Beuth: Before a supposedly inactive extremist will be sorted out of the files in the future, we will again check separately whether he really has integrated himself back into society and is actually no longer active. In Hesse, this is a number of persons in the middle three-digit range, with right-wing extremists alone. We will now take a closer look under this focus.
SPIEGEL: There has been a moratorium on right-wing extremists since the NSU was discovered: the personal files are only blocked after the five-year period, not deleted. Will you now take these already locked files again in your hand and check the people again?
Beuth: Yes, in these cases, this is what the Data Protection Officer of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution does. In any case, we want to know if the person is really 'chilled', as the news service calls it.
SPIEGEL: Stephan Ernst was mentioned eleven times in 2013 in a secret report of the Hessian constitution protection to the right-wing extremism, this number had to publish the office now after a court decision. How does that fit with the presentation that he has not been on the screen since 2009?
Beuth: He was mentioned in a report from 2013, because it was concerned with the period in which he was demonstrably active. The date that carries a report, however, says nothing about the content that is treated there. It is beyond question that the suspected murderer of Walter Lübcke since the nineties massively active as a criminal offender in the field of right-wing extremism and also emerged on several occasions in the files. Thus, these eleven names in the report referred to all refer to previous findings from the period from 1993 to 2004. The last date in which he made visible in the security agencies, was at a demonstration in Dortmund in 2009, what 2010 led to a court ruling. If then five years no further activity attracts attention, the file is locked. But again: In this case, it is still in this locked form, so we could, for example, provide it to the Attorney General for his investigations in the Lübcke case.
Uli deck / DPA
The arrested main suspect in the murder case Lübcke: Stephan Ernst
SPIEGEL: Stephan Ernst was a member of the shooting club, his suspected helper came through this shooting club on gun license and weapons. The man from Wächtersbach, who shot an asylum seeker from Eritrea, was a sportsman. Do not these clubs need to be much better controlled?
Beuth: I'm not just talking about the shooting clubs. I want no extremist to legally possess a weapon. That is why I have launched an initiative that was approved last week in the Bundesrat: In the future, even an entry on an extremist person in the constitutional protection as "unreliable" sufficient so that weapons authorities can refuse a firearm license and withdraw. So it takes in court no elaborate evidence more. Now the federal government and the Bundestag still have to agree.
SPIEGEL: That means, in the future, no more legal weapons for NPD members?
Beuth: Exactly. NPD politicians or any other extremist should no longer legally come to arms.
SPIEGEL: Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced after the Lübcke murder to want to test a ban on the militant neo-Nazi organization "Combat 18", which included people from the environment of Stephan Ernst. They have also been strong. But months later nothing has happened - what is the problem?
Beuth: To ban a club in Germany is not that easy. After all, the ban must also be held before the administrative court. Since the association is active across borders, the federal government is responsible in this case. We have passed on our Hessian findings and support the federal government.
SPIEGEL: Have you received any feedback from Berlin since then?
Beuth: They are working on it.
SPIEGEL: How many Hessian police officers are currently being investigated for possible right-wing extremist statements or attitudes?
Beuth: We had almost 40 colleagues in Hesse who were suspected of having a right-wing extremist background. Mostly it's about sharing sayings and pictures. More than a dozen of these cases have been closed and five men have been dismissed. The rest are still under investigation. Every little suspicion in the Hessian police is immediately checked by the investigators. Therefore, I do not rule out that they will deal with further cases in the future. We consistently follow any right-wing suspicions. For me, the most important thing is that the reputation of the Hessian police must be impeccable - and if it is not, then we must work to make it irreproachable. This is in the interest of all police officers and also of the citizens.
SPIEGEL: The call has long since been damaged. What are you doing specifically?
Beuth: With our investigations we show that we pursue every little suspicion and make it clear that the Hessian police does not tolerate xenophobia. We owe that to the more than 14,000 officials who did nothing wrong. I want to make sure that there are no such people among us who spread antisemitic and right-wing extremist content in chat groups. The investigation is extremely complex. Terabytes of data were backed up on the phones of the suspected police officers who focus on the right-wing chats. It is in each case actually and legally very expensive.
SPIEGEL: Police officers are also affected. What's wrong with the recruitment tests?
Beuth: Our tests are very strict. But there is always a residual risk because we can not look behind anyone's brow. We immediately sorted out these candidates and made them aware that they can not become civil servants. One or the other complains against this, which will now be clarified in court. But we have set the clear signal that we do not tolerate such behavior with the Hessian police.
SPIEGEL: You commissioned a scientific study on the problems with the police. What do you do if it also comes out that the neo-Nazi problem in the police is much larger than previously known?
Beuth: My impression so far is that it is an individual misconduct, but we can not ignore it. And to answer her question concretely: With the study we are doing everything in our power to restore the integrity of the police. Even if an unpleasant result comes out in the end, we will derive the right measures from it.
SPIEGEL: Why is it so difficult to identify the writers of the Drohfaxe to the Frankfurt lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz, who are presumably associated with right-wing extremist tendencies in the police? The public address of the lawyer was previously asked by a Frankfurt police computer, so it is very obvious that an official from this area was involved.
Beuth: It's very hard to figure out who's behind it, because the perpetrator or the perpetrators have done everything they can to leave no trace in terms of technology. Sixty people work on the case using all technical means. We will not let up.
