The specter of Nazism continues to haunt Germany.
The Frankfurt Police Special Forces Unit will be disbanded after newsgroups spreading neo-Nazi propaganda among some of its members came to light.
"The unacceptable conduct of several agents and their superiors" within the Special Intervention Commandos (SEK) of the Land of Hesse "made its total dissolution necessary", declared Thursday the Minister of the Interior of this region of the West Germany, Peter Beuth (CDU).
Federal police raided the homes of six police officers on Wednesday.
In the process, the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office announced that it suspected twenty people, all police officers, including eighteen members of the special forces, of being involved in these discussion forums, active between 2016 and 2019.
Swastikas, portraits of Hitler, xenophobic insults… Seventeen of them are accused of having disseminated content inciting racial hatred or sharing neo-Nazi propaganda images.
Three others, officers, are accused of obstructing justice;
as superiors, they should have stopped or sanctioned discussions of which they were informed and did not do so.
Men aged 29 to 54
But "special moral requirements" are expected from these professionals, said Thursday the chief of police, Stefan Müller.
"Those who do not meet all of these requirements have nothing to do in these units," he said.
The investigation began in April with allegations against a 38-year-old officer from the SEK Special Deployment Commando in Frankfurt, accused of sharing illegal content, including child pornography.
The search of his two cell phones and his computer had uncovered some of the racist forums involved today.
All are men, aged 29 to 54.
The 19 active police officers are not allowed to perform their duties.
The twentieth is retired.
A team of experts was tasked with restructuring the elite unit.
Several such scandals have rocked the German police as well as the army in recent months, leading to layoffs and internal reorganizations. In May 2020, soldiers suspected of planning an attack against German political figures were arrested. They were close to the neo-Nazi movements still active in Germany. A month and a half later, it was decided to partially dissolve the KSK (Kommando Spezialkräfte, special forces unit), following several scandals about the proximity of the military to the extreme right.
Franco A., a 32-year-old former German army officer, appeared in court in Frankfurt on Tuesday. He is being prosecuted for having created a false identity as an asylum seeker in 2017 with the aim of planning a terrorist attack, hoping that it will then be blamed on the migrants.
