The process would be outrageous: Special forces from the police and Bundeswehr are said to have formed a right-wing network - with contacts to extremists. The Uniter association rejects participation.
Berlin (dpa) - The protection of the constitution is now also interested in the Uniter association, which was founded by members of military and police special forces.
Uniter had hit the headlines after an investigation into right-wing networks. The association was also a subject on several occasions in the secret parliamentary control committee of the Bundestag.
The "Spiegel" reported that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) had declared the association a "test case". The Office for the Protection of the Constitution must not publicly report on so-called test cases in which the use of intelligence resources is not permitted. A court had recently found this in connection with the authority's view of the AfD.
The Federal Office said on request that Uniter was not currently an observation object of the BfV. In fulfilling its legal mandate, however, the BfV "continuously evaluates various groups of people with regard to the existence of actual indications of an endeavor against the free democratic basic order".
Uniter had been targeted by the authorities in the course of the investigation into Franco A. without himself being a member. The Bundeswehr officer had pretended to be a Syrian refugee. He is suspected of having planned attacks based on an extreme right-wing attitude.
Andre S., nickname "Hannibal", is a co-founder of Uniter. He was a long-time member of the Special Forces Command (KSK) and was interviewed by the Military Shield Service (MAD) from summer 2017 until he was transferred to another unit as an "information person". He left the Bundeswehr last September. According to its own statements, Uniter was founded in 2010 from two networks for command units of the Bundeswehr and police and a group from the European NATO command Shape.
André S. said in an interview with the portal t-online.de on Wednesday: "We take note of this decision and even welcome the classification so that the allegations can be finally resolved."
The club's leadership had previously rejected connections to criminal extremist structures or the accusation of a political agenda after media reports about plans for a "shadow army". Investigators have so far found no evidence of this.
Sergeant Andre S. had come into the eye of the authorities after the suspected terrorist officer Franco A. was exposed in 2017 because of a weapon hidden at Vienna Airport. There was a search at the KSK and in private homes to check contact people and a so-called haze circle and to clarify a possible network. It also involved chat groups in the messenger service Telegram, in which right-wing preppers exchanged views. Preppers are doomed prophets who are preparing for a possible breakdown of the state order. Franco A. also participated.
In response to a request from the Greens, the federal government had said last year that Andre S. had been the administrator of a chat group that dealt with "issues related to crisis preparedness".