Far-right politics in Germany (1945–present)

Thefar-right in Germany(German:rechtsextrem) slowly reorganised itself after the fall ofNazi Germanyand the dissolution of theNazi Partyin 1945.Denazificationwas carried out in Germany from 1945 to 1949 by theAllied forces of World War II, with an attempt of eliminating Nazism from the country. However, various far-right parties emerged in thepost-war period, with varying success. Most parties only lasted a few years before either dissolving or being banned, and explicitly far-right parties have never gained seats in theBundestag(Germany's federal parliament) post-WWII.
The closest was the hard-rightDeutsche Rechtspartei(German Right Party), which attracted former Nazis and won five seats in the1949 West German federal electionand held these seats for four years, before losing them in the1953 West German federal election.
"Far-right" is synonymous with the term "extreme right", or literally "right-extremist" (the term used by GermanFederal Office for the Protection of the Constitution), according to whichneo-Nazismis a subclass, with its historical orientation at Nazism.
In 1946, theDeutsche Rechtsparteiwas founded and in 1950 succeeded by theDeutsche Reichspartei. As theallied occupation of Germanyended in 1949, a number of new far-right parties emerged: TheSocialist Reich Party, founded in 1949, theGerman Social Union (West Germany), theFree German Workers' Party,Nationalist FrontandNational Offensive.
In 1964, theNational Democratic Party of Germanywas founded, which continues to the present day.
The 1980s saw an increase in right wing organization and activity across Western Europe. In 1984-5 theEuropean Parliamentorganized a Committee of Inquiry into the Rise of Racism and Fascism in Europe; in 1989, another Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia. In the report of the second Committee, issued to parliament in October 1990, West German Social DemocratWilli Rothleyargued that economic and social changes arising from "modernizing society" were responsible for the recent rise of right-wing extremism, particularly a weakening cohesion among family, work, and religious association leading to a "growing susceptibility to political platforms offering security by emphasizing the national aspect or providing scapegoats (foreigners)."
The report notes the "meteoric" rise of theRepublikaner Partei (REP)in 1989, whose leaderFranz Schönhuberhad been a member of theWaffen-SS, and who "proudly admits his Nazi past." The party won two million votes in the 1989 European Parliament elections on a platform that "openly advocated the abolition of trade unions, the destruction of social welfare, censorship, and the wholesale 'de-criminalization' of German history. Promoting the expulsion of immigrants and a reunification of Germany to the 1937 borders, the actual reunification of West and East Germany triggered a collapse of the REP's voter base. Until then,Helmut Kohl, as first chancellor of a reunified Germany, refused to guarantee Poland's western boundary. The GermanState Office for the Protection of the Constitutionreported over 38,500 "extreme-rightists" in West Germany in 1989, but this number did not include 1-2 million members of the REP, while the NDP/DVU alliance, which was included, despite having only 27,000 members, won 455,000 votes in the June 1989 European elections. By 1991 a splinter group had formed into theDeutsche Allianzled byHarald Neubauer. After reunification, right-wing activity seems to have shifted primarily to the states of former East Germany, which included violent border incidents after the opening of visa-free travel between Germany and Poland in April 1991.
East Germany(GDR) was founded under a different pretext than West Germany. As asocialist state, it was based on the idea thatfascismwas an extreme form ofcapitalism. Thus, it understood itself as ananti-fasciststate (Article 6 of the GDR constitution) and anti-fascist andanti-colonialisteducation played an important role in schools and in ideological training at universities. In contrast to West Germany, organizations of the Nazi regime had always been condemned and their crimes openly discussed as part of the official state doctrine in the GDR. Thus, in the GDR, there was no room for a movement similar to the1968 movement in West Germany, and GDR opposition groups did not see the topic as a major issue. Open right-wing radicalism was relatively weak until the 1980s. Later, smaller extremist groups formed (e.g. those associated with football violence). The government attempted to address the issue, but at the same time had ideological reasons not to do so openly as it conflicted with the self-image of a socialist society.
In 1991, one year afterGerman reunification, German neo-Nazis attacked accommodations forrefugeesand migrant workers inHoyerswerda(Hoyerswerda riots),Schwedt,Eberswalde,EisenhüttenstadtandElsterwerda,and in 1992,xenophobic riots broke outinRostock-Lichtenhagen. Neo-Nazis were involved in the murders of threeTurkishgirls in a 1992 arson attack inMölln(Schleswig-Holstein), in which nine other people were injured.
German statistics show that in 1991, there were 849hate crimes; in 1992 there were 1,485 concentrated in theeastern Bundesländer. After 1992, the numbers decreased, although they rose sharply in subsequent years. In four decades of the formerEast Germany, 17 people were murdered by far right groups.
A1993 arson attackbyfar-right skinheadson the house of a Turkish family inSolingenresulted in the deaths of two women and three girls, as well as in severe injuries for seven other people.In the aftermath, anti-racist protests precipitated massive neo-Nazi counter-demonstrations and violent clashes between neo-Nazis andanti-fascists.
In 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of theBombing of Dresden in World War II, a radical left group, theAnti-Germans (political current)started an annual rally praising the bombing on the grounds that so many of the city's civilians had supported Nazism.Beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Neo-Nazis started holding demonstrations on the same date.In 2009, theJunge Landsmannschaft Ostdeutschlandyouth group and the NPD organised a march but surrounded by policemen, the 6,000 neo-Nazis were not allowed to leave their meeting point. At the same time, some 15,000 people withwhite rosesassembled in the streets holding hands to demonstrate against Nazism, and to create an alternative “memorial day” of war victims.
In 2004, the National Democratic Party of Germany won 9.2% in theSaxony state election, 2004, and 1.6% of the nationwide vote in theGerman federal election, 2005. In theMecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, 2006the NPD received 7.3% of the vote and thus also state representation.In 2004, the NPD had 5,300 registered party members.Over the course of 2006, the NPD processed roughly 1,000 party applications which put the total membership at 7,000. The DVU has 8,500 members.
In 2007, theVerfassungsschutz(Federal German intelligence) estimated the number of potentially right extremist individuals in Germany was 31,000 of which about 10,000 were classified as potentiallyviolent(gewaltbereit).
In 2008, unknown perpetrators smashed cars with Polish registrations and breaking windows inLöcknitz, a German town near the Polish citySzczecin, where about 200 Poles live. Supporters of the NPD party were suspected to be behind anti-Polish incidents, perGazeta Wyborcza.
In 2011, theNational Socialist Undergroundwas finally exposed in being behind the murders of 10 people of Turkish origins between 2000 and 2007.
In 2011, Federal German intelligence reported 25,000 right-wing extremists, including 5,600 neo-Nazis.In the same report, 15,905 crimes committed in 2010 were classified as far-right motivated, compared to 18,750 in 2009; these crimes included 762 acts of violence in 2010 compared to 891 in 2009.While the overall numbers had declined, the Verfassungsschutz indicated that both the number of neo-Nazis and the potential for violent acts have increased, especially among the growing number ofAutonome Nationalisten("Independent Nationalists") who gradually replace the declining number ofNazi Skinheads.
In the2014 European Parliament election, the NPD won their first ever seat in theEuropean Parliamentwith 1% of the vote.Jamel, Germanyis a village known to be heavily populated with neo-Nazis.
According to interior ministry figures reported in May 2019, of an estimated 24,000 far-right extremists in the country, 12,700 Germans are inclined towards violence. Extremists belonging toDer Dritte Weg(the third way) marched through a town inSaxonyon 1 May, the day before theJewishremembrance of theHolocaust, carrying flags and a banner saying "Social justice instead of criminal foreigners".In 2020,Deutsches Reichsbräubeer with neo-Nazi imagery was sold inBad BibraonHolocaust Memorial Day.
In October 2019, the city council of Dresden passed a motion declaring a "Nazi emergency", signalling that there is a serious problem with the far right in the city.
In February 2020, following an observation of a conspiratorial meeting of a dozen right-wing extremists, those involved were arrested after agreeing to launch attacks onmosques in Germanyto trigger a civil war.
The National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany has made efforts to be incorporated into the environmental movement in an effort to attract new members amongst the younger generations. They have published conservation magazines including Umwelt und Aktiv (Environment and Active). This magazine and others of its kind incorporate both environmentalism and tips as well as far-right propaganda and rhetoric. It's argued by an anonymous member of the Centre for Democratic Culture that this endeavor is in part a rebranding of the NPD. They argue that the party is attempting to become associated with environmentalism and not politics.
In the2024 Thuringian state election, theAlternative for Germany(AfD) became the first far-right party in Germany since theNazi Partyto win a plurality of seats in a state election.
After 1990, far-right andGerman nationalistgroups gained followers, particularly among young people frustrated by the high unemployment and the poor economic situation.Der Spiegelalso points out that these people are primarily single men and that there may also be socio-demographic reasons.Since around 1998 the support for right-wing parties shifted from the south of Germany to the east.
The far-right partyGerman People's Union(DVU) formed in1998in Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg since1999. In 2009, the party lost its representation in theLandtag of Brandenburg.
The far-rightNational Democratic Party of Germany(NPD) was represented in theSaxon State Parliamentfrom2004to2014.In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the NPD losts its representation in the parliament following the2016 state elections.In 2009,Junge Landsmannschaft Ostdeutschland, supported by the NPD, organized a march on the anniversary of theBombing of Dresden in World War II. There were 6,000 Nationalists which were met by tens of thousands of ″anti-Nazis″ and several thousand policemen.
Pegidahas its focus in eastern Germany.A survey by TNS Emnid reports that in mid-December 2014, 53% of East Germans in each case sympathised with the PEGIDA demonstrators. (48% in the West)
TheAlternative for Germany(Alternative für Deutschland; AfD) had the most votes in the new states of Germany in the2013 German federal elections, in 2017.and in 2021 elections. The party is seen as harbouring anti-immigration views.
In 2016, the AfD reached at least 17% inSaxony-Anhalt,Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania(where the NPD lost all seats)andBerlin.
In 2015,Rhineland-Palatinateinterior minister Roger Lewentz said the former communist states were "more susceptible" to "xenophobic radicalization" because former East Germany had not had the same exposure to foreign people and cultures over the decades that the people in the West of the country have had.
A 2017 study found that the reason why East Germans were more prone to hold right-wing extreme  and xenophobia views, was due toEast Germanycommunist rule.In 2018 the East German state of Saxony saw the anti-immigrationChemnitz protests.
In the2017 federal election, the AfD received approximately 22% of the votesin the East and approximately 11%in the West.
In the2021 federal election, the AfD emerged as the largest in the states ofSaxonyandThuringia, and saw a strong performance ineastern Germany.
Right-wing extremist attitudes in state authorities such as the federal and state police,the  Armed Forces, thejudiciaryand theOffice for the Protection of the Constitutionare not recorded statistically or systematically in Germany. Since around 2015, more incidents with right-wing extremist references and the beginnings of right-wing extremist networks in state authorities have become known. Since 2016, a number of criminologists, social scientists and journalists have been investigating this phenomenon more intensively. They criticise the lack of profession-specific surveys, which allowed the responsible supervisory bodies and ministries to adopt stereotypical defensive reaction patterns, such as "the same standard phrase about regrettable individual cases".
In November 2018, a female student filed a complaint of rape against aBavarian policeofficer. In January 2019, investigators found a WhatsApp group of 42 former and active members of the Munich police support squad (USK) on his and other mobile phones. In it, they had shared a video showing the brutal use of a Taser and another that denigrated Jews in an anti-Semitic way.In addition, one USK officer had saved pictures of swastika smearings on his mobile phone that were not supposed to appear in the chat. Furthermore, two USK officers are said to have deliberately injured two colleagues with a stun gun during Taser training.The USK had been known since the 1980s for its often brutal operations at demonstrations organised by theanti-nuclear movement. Some cases of police violence from the USK had been reported and punished. In May 2014, a USK officer stuck two stickers with neo-Nazi slogans ("Good Night Left Side" and "Anti-Antifa organizing ...") on his police bus. The USK has often had to protect neo-Nazi marches. In 2016, USK officers subjected protesters against a Nazi rally to a strip search, during which they had to strip naked and be humiliated. TheEuropean Court of Human Rightslater ruled in favour of one of those affected. The current case only became known in March 2019. The Ministry of the Interior stated that four USK officers were suspended immediately and a further eight were transferred. The supervisory authorities did not announce any specific follow-up measures.By March 2020, eleven USK officers had been forcibly transferred, disciplinary proceedings had been opened against 15 and one had been punished for incitement to hatred. Two criminal proceedings on suspicion of violating official secrets were still ongoing.
In 2015, the far-right blog "Halle Leaks" published excerpts from Berlin police investigation files containing the names and addresses of visitors and residents of a squat in theRigaer Straße. At the time, they also investigated whether police officers could have leaked the data. The perpetrators were not found and the investigation was closed. At the end of December 2017, six left-wing organisations in Berlin, including the house on Rigaer Straße, received a letter containing the private data of 42 people from that part of the city: personal photos, names, addresses, nicknames, favourite travel destinations, pets and illnesses. The photos came from police files, the official population register, identity card applications and arrests. They were all stored in the Berlin police database. The anonymous author or authors threatened to pass the data on to the far-rightIdentitarian Movement,autonomous nationalistsor the police. They accused the recipients, who did not know each other, of belonging to a tightly organised radical left-wing group and referred to a poster with portrait photos of Berlin police officers that the left-wing portalIndymediahad published four days earlier after the eviction of the house in Rigaer Straße. It was therefore suspected that police officers had illegally passed the material on to third parties or sent the letters themselves. Following a criminal complaint by the Berlin data protection commissioner, the police handed over the internal investigation to the Berlin public prosecutor's office.The latter found out that a female detective inspector, responsible forpolitically motivated crime - left-wingin the State Office of Criminal Investigation, had searched the police system for data that appeared shortly afterwards in the threatening letters. Her partner, a police commissioner, had a USB stick with the photos and personal data of the recipients. He had collected them privately for years and then, according to his own statements, used them as revenge for Indymedia's "manhunt" for the threatening letters. As he had previously worked as an undercover investigator in Berlin's left-wing scene and had been exposed by left-wing activists, it is also suspected that he was seeking revenge. In 2019, he received a fine for a data protection offence and was transferred toBerlin-Friedrichshain, where many of the recipients of his letters live.
In January 2016, police inspector Marco G. founded a prepper group in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania calledNordkreuz, whose 60 to 70 members prepared for an expected collapse of the state order on "Day X" with weapons, ammunition and food depots as well as shooting exercises. Among them were many members of the police and Bundeswehr. Some leaders kept lists of enemies with tens of thousands of names. The group also procured body bags and slaked lime. In 2019, Marco G. received a suspended sentence for his collection of weapons and ammunition.
In 2016, a former member of thefar-rightpolitical partyAlternative for Germanyfederal executive board passed on information from a classified report by the Federal Criminal Police Office, including on refugee numbers, to party friends by email. The man wrote the email as an administrative officer in the Osnabrück police headquarters. It remains unclear how he obtained the data.
InNorth Rhine-Westphalia(NRW), investigators discovered a chat group in theAachen-West police station in January 2020 whose members were exchanging racist images, such as a black man with wide open eyes and the sentence "The social welfare office is broke, starting today we will work" or a photo of animperial eaglewith a swastika. Investigation proceedings were initiated against three police officers.
In February 2020, the Federal Public Prosecutor General's Office found a right-wing extremist chat group during its investigation into the right-wing terroristGroup S.In it, Chief Superintendent Thorsten W. (member of the S. group and informant on their terror plans), another police officer atHammpolice headquarters and an administrative officer had been exchanging far-right messages for years, such as swastikas, SS runes, skulls, information on where to order bed linen with Nazi symbols without being observed, racist slogans and Nazi propaganda. They joked about wanting to shoot foreigners. As media research showed, Thorsten W. had clearly demonstrated his far-right views at his police station in Bockum-Hövel and gathered official information about the Reichsbürger scene, to which he himself belonged.State Interior MinisterHerbert Reulthen appointed external extremism officers in all police headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia to make it easier for police officers to report anti-constitutional statements or attitudes of their colleagues. InEssen, the wife of the local police chief was appointed to this position.
In September 2020, investigators found right-wing extremist photographs on the private mobile phone of a police officer in Essen who had allegedly passed on official secrets to a journalist. Using the memory data on this one mobile phone, they came across at least five far-right chat groups. The oldest had existed since 2012; the group with the most images was founded in 2015.The chat members distributed 126 image files, including photos ofAdolf Hitlerand a fictitious depiction of a refugee in agas chamber.
On 16 September 2020, around 200 police officers then searched 34 police stations and private homes of police officers involved inDuisburg,Essen,Mülheim an der Ruhr,Oberhausen,MoersandSelm. They confiscated 43 telephones and numerous storage media. 29 suspected officers and one female officer were suspended from duty.Disciplinary proceedings were opened against them. Almost all of them belonged to a service group at Mülheim police station, including the group leader. The squad was disbanded. Eleven members are said to have actively posted and sent criminally relevant content in the chat groups. They were investigated for incitement of the people and use of symbols of anti-constitutional organisations. The remaining 18 are said to have received the right-wing extremist messages but not reported them.At least 14 of the officers involved were to be dismissed. Mr Reul explained that he expected further findings and was no longer assuming individual cases.He ordered a special inspection for the particularly affected police headquarters in Essen and appointed Uwe Reichel-Offermann (previously Deputy Head of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution) as a special commissioner to draw up a situation report on right-wing extremism in the NRW police force and a concept for its early detection.On 24 September 2020, Reul reported to the Interior Committee of the NRW state parliament on 100 suspected cases of right-wing extremism in NRW's police force since 2017. 92 disciplinary proceedings were initiated against police officers, 21 of which were concluded without action, and sanctions were imposed eight times. Of the 71 ongoing proceedings, 31 are directed against members of the recently exposed right-wing extremist chat groups. Following their discovery, 16 further reports of right-wing extremist or racist statements were received from NRW police officers. Another officer from the Essen police headquarters was suspended.
According to the NRW Ministry of the Interior, North Rhine-Westphalian police authorities reported a total of 275 cases of suspected right-wing extremism among their officers between 2017 and the end of September 2021. By October 2021, suspicions had been confirmed in 53 of these cases and not in 84 cases. 138 other cases were still being investigated. The confirmed cases have already been penalised under criminal and disciplinary law. Six trainee inspectors were dismissed by mid-September 2021, two were dismissed and three warned. In many other cases, however, the judiciary categorised the chats in question as private communication, meaning that the perpetrators could at best be punished under disciplinary law, but not for disseminating unconstitutional material. These included saved data with the bannedHorst Wessel song, photos of Christmas tree baubles withSS runesand "Sieg Heil" inscriptions, with a swastika made from service ammunition and the photo of an officer in uniform giving the "Hitler salute" while standing on two patrol cars.
In May 2015, leftists found a mobile phone with logs of chats that police officer Fernando V. had had with neo-Nazis. In these chats, he had informed a violent offender with a criminal record about upcoming police operations against other neo-Nazis and exchangedanti-Semiticconspiracy theories. After it became known, he was transferred to a police academy to train police officers.In September 2015,Pegidafounder Lutz Bachmann published police investigation files, including the address of a suspect in a rape case. He claimed that he regularly received internal police information labelled as classified. The data was true, but the source was not found.
In December 2015, a main suspect of theFreital grouptestified that he had received information from the local riot police. This may have been one of the reasons why the eight perpetrators were able to plan and carry out their terrorist attacks unhindered for six months. Investigations into this were only initiated after a victims' lawyer filed a complaint, but were closed without results until 2017 because the three suspected police officers remained silent and their mobile phones with the alleged chats were not found.It was only after the Federal Public Prosecutor General intervened that the Freital group was arrested in 2016 and later convicted of forming a terrorist organisation. The Dresden public prosecutor's office had persistently refused to bring charges for this offence. Saxony's Deputy Prime MinisterMartin Dulig(SPD) therefore suspected at the time that "sympathies forPegidaand theAlternative for Germany (AfD)are greater in Saxony's police force than in the average population" and added: "Our police officers are the representatives of our state. As the employer, we can expect them to have internalised the basic elements of political education."
In January 2016, the NPD in Leipzig usedTwitterto disseminate the protocol and photo of a police check on demonstrators againstLegida, during which weapons were confiscated. The photo was taken from a police computer. How it reached the NPD remained unclear. In the summer of 2018, Lutz Bachmann and the small right-wing extremist partyPro Chemnitzpublished the police arrest warrant for an Iraqi who was on the run at the time and was accused of murdering a man from Chemnitz. The Saxon justice official Daniel Zabel revealed himself as the source and claimed that he had wanted to counter media lies by copying and passing on the arrest warrant. He was suspended and then ran for Dresden city council as an AfD member. Another police officer disseminated the arrest warrant on Facebook and was fined for doing so.
On 11 January 2016, the first anniversary of Legida, up to 300 right-wing hooligans and neo-Nazis attacked the Connewitz district inLeipzig, which is inhabited by many left-wingers, armed with iron bars, batons, tear gas and a hand grenade. They destroyed 23 pubs, 19 cars, damaged residential buildings and shops, and threatened and injured many passers-by and onlookers. The attackers came from all over Germany, many were known to the police and belonged to right-wing terrorist groups such asWeisse Wölfe Terrorcrew,Skinheads Sächsische Schweiz, "Kameradschaft Tor Berlin", Gruppe Freital, the NPD and violenthooligangroups such as the Imperium Fight Team (Leipzig), Faust des Ostens (Dresden) andNS-Boys(Chemnitz). They had been preparing the attack on social media for months, naming Connewitz as the target days beforehand and their meeting point on arrival. The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Saxony had warned of the attack on 9 January 2016. Nevertheless, Saxony'sState Office for the Protection of the Constitutionand Ministry of the Interior claimed in the Connewitz trials from August 2018 that they had been unaware of the planning. On the other hand, neo-Nazis travelling to the event had learned from police sources about controls against leftists.Antifaresearch revealed that Saxon police officers were acting as trainers and recruiters for the Imperium Fight Team. No cars of travelling neo-Nazis had been searched during police checks, although weapons were visible in some of them. After the attack, the police collected all discarded items in a box and thus covered up DNA traces, left balaclavas and weapons lying around, allowed detainees to communicate on their mobile phones for hours and thus made it possible to delete arranged chats. From the second of around 112 Connewitz trials, the Leipzig district court, in agreement with neo-Nazi lawyer Olaf Klemke, only handed down suspended sentences to confessed offenders in order to avoid time-consuming witness interrogations. As a result, even organised neo-Nazis and NPD functionaries with previous convictions were classified as fellow travellers and only punished with fines. The court initially did not prosecute violence against persons at all and only called a victim of violence as a witness after press reports about the defendant's previous convictions. The trial was intended to be shortened by merging charges and dispensing with a full hearing of evidence. Trial observers criticised the cooperation of some right-wing police officers and district judges with neo-Nazis and the exploitation of staff shortages in the Saxon judiciary for the lack of prosecution of organised political crime.
In 2024, the police conducted an investigated of the neo-nazi group theSaxon Separatists. TheFederal Criminal Police OfficeBKA, theFederal Office for the Protection of the ConstitutionBfV and the Saxony State Criminal Police Office were involved in the investigation. Austrian and Polish secret services were also involved.The Federal Prosecutor's Office finally came to the conclusion thatSaxon Separatistsmade active preparations for a violent coup in Germany.  The Federal Prosecutor's Office then found eight men or young people in various places in Saxony in the early morning of November 5, 2024 in Germany and Poland and arrested the suspects. The arrests took place in and around Leipzig, in Dresden, in the Meißen district. The alleged leader Jörg S. was arrested inZgorzelec, Poland, in the neighboring town ofGörlitz.The police searched 20 properties including inVienna,Austria, and theKrems-Landdistrict. More than 450 emergency services were involved in the operations.
According to media reports, right-wing extremist incidents involving the German police have risen sharply in recent years. In response to enquiries from police authorities in all federal states,Deutschlandfunkreceived information on around 200 such cases across Germany in 2018 and 2019, including racist and inciting statements, contacts or affiliation with the "Reichsbürger", the use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations and others. The enquiries were prompted by the faxes and emails signed "NSU 2.0" containing death threats and private data from Hesse police registers, which a victims' lawyer in theNational Socialist Undergroundtrial has been receiving since August 2018. The Frankfurt public prosecutor's office investigated its own colleagues internally for four months before the case became public. As a result of this scandal, dozens of cases were discovered where police officers had made far-right comments in chat groups or at parties, collected Nazi memorabilia, chatted with neo-Nazis or sent swastikas. Hessian Interior MinisterPeter Beuth, who had been aware of the suspicions against Frankfurt police officers for months but had concealed them, denied that it was an extreme right-wing network.
According to a survey byTagesspiegel, 14 state interior ministries registered a total of at least 170 right-wing extremist incidents involving their police officers between the beginning of 2015 and August 2020. These included Hitler salutes, anti-Semitic videos and Reichsbürger symbols. The state of Hesse did not provide any information on this, Saxony did not register the cases, Berlin did not provide exact figures and some authorities only collected incomplete data. In Bavaria, there were 30 mostly unresolved disciplinary proceedings regarding right-wing extremist incidents, 26 cases in Schleswig-Holstein, 21 in North Rhine-Westphalia, 18 each in Baden-Württemberg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, five in Hamburg, two in Brandenburg, one in Saarland and none in Bremen. Internal police chat groups with right-wing extremist content have so far been reported in Hesse, Berlin, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Baden-Württemberg. None of the 16 authorities registered any left-wing extremist incidents.
Police researchers and criminologists explain the findings by saying that the police profession attracts people with authoritarian and right-wing to far-right attitudes more than many other professions and that the cohesion required for their work in the service groups means that incidents are rarely reported. After the "NSU 2.0" letters became known in December 2018, NSU victim advocate and police trainer Mehmet Daimagüler demanded the following measures from the federal and state governments:
Jörn Badendick, a staff representative in the Berlin police force, added:
"Every police officer has to stand up in such cases and say: I'm not going along with this."
Offices for internal investigations should no longer be under the control of the police themselves, but should report directly to the public prosecutor's offices.
Representatives ofthe Green Partycalled for the appointment of independent police commissioners at federal and state level, modelled on the military commissioner, who could also accept and investigate anonymous reports of shortcomings and misconduct by police officers.
Political scientistChristoph Kopkeand criminologistTobias Singelnsteinblame the following factors for the increase in right-wing extremist incidents in the German police force:
In March 2020, theEuropean Commission against Racism and Intolerance(ECRI) presented a new study on institutional racism in Germany. The authors found a significant increase in racism, Islamophobia, unresolved far-right attacks and the trivialisation of the AfD by the authorities between 2014 and June 2019. They called for Germany to include mandatory courses on racism and discrimination, human rights and equal treatment in education laws and curricula in schools, universities and especially in police training. Police racial profiling has been sufficiently proven, but continues to be denied, ignored or dismissed as isolated cases by German police authorities. Victims of discriminatory and racist violence therefore largely lack trust in the German police. The police and the Office for the Defence of the Constitution must specifically campaign for people to leave extreme circles. The Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency must be given more funding and the right to support victims and bring legal action.
Political scientistHajo Funkesees the right-wing extremist incidents in German police authorities as a "structural problem" of right-wing networks in state institutions. The security authorities "systematically allow such tendencies to spread". The "respective leadership", independent investigations, a functioning judiciary and public pressure are crucial for successful clarification. There is a "lack of political will to investigate" in the Hessian authorities "at all levels, from the police chief to the Minister of the Interior to the Minister President". This is why the author or authors of the "NSU 2.0" threatening emails have still not been caught after more than two years.
Criminologist Dirk Baier explained that chat groups, as typical echo chambers, also cause radicalisation in other ways: "People send each other messages that reinforce their own views. Deviating information is no longer taken note of."Sebastian Fiedler(Association of German Criminal Investigators) called for police officers to be banned from setting up chat groups for official matters on private phones in future. For too long, he said, most federal states had done nothing to tackle this long-known problem.Tobias Singelnstein called for anonymous reporting procedures for internal grievances in the police force, because 'blackening the colours' of colleagues through official channels is generally rejected there.
TheMilitary Counterintelligence Service(MAD) is responsible for registering right-wing extremist incidents in theGerman Armed Forces (Bundeswehr). The annual reports of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces document them for parliament and the public. The report for 2018 cited 270 new cases of suspected right-wing extremism and 170 reportable incidents. The MAD's criteria only categorise soldiers as extremists if they clearly wanted to eliminate the FDGO. Hitler salutes and Wehrmacht memorabilia are not included; cases reported at unit level are also not statistically recorded. Bundeswehr instructors who report such incidents therefore assume that the number of unreported incidents is up to ten times higher. The official figures are far too low, also because many soldiers are bullied in the troops and forcibly transferred if they report their comrades. The Ministry of Defence often only reacts to media reports on right-wing extremist incidents in the Bundeswehr. Some notable examples in recent years include
TheGerman Criminal Codeforbids the "use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations" outside the contexts of "art or science, research or teaching". However, Nazi paraphernalia has been smuggled into the country for decades.Neo-Nazi rock bandssuch asLandserhave been outlawed in Germany, yetbootlegcopies of their albums printed in the United States and other countries are still sold in the country. German neo-Nazi websites mostly depend on Internet servers in the US andCanada. They often use symbols that are reminiscent of the swastika, and adopt other symbols used by the Nazis, such as theBlack Sun,Algiz rune, andIron Crossalongside theflag of the German Empire.
Neo-Nazi groups active in Germany which have attracted government attention includeVolkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands/Partei der Arbeitbanned in 1982,Action Front of National Socialists/National Activistsbanned in 1983, the Nationalist Front banned in 1992, theFree German Workers' Party, theGerman AlternativeandNational Offensive. German Interior MinisterWolfgang Schäublecondemned the Homeland-Faithful German Youth, accusing it of teaching children that anti-immigrant racism andanti-Semitismare acceptable.Homeland-Faithful German Youth claimed that it was centred primarily on "environment, community and homeland", but it has been argued to have links to theNational Democratic Party (NPD).
HistorianWalter Laqueurwrote in 1996 that thefar rightNPD cannot be classified as neo-Nazi.In the2004 Saxony state election, the NPD received 9.1% of the vote, thus earning the right to seatstate parliamentmembers.The other partiesrefused to enter discussionswith the NPD. In the 2006 parliamentary elections forMecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the NPD received 7.3% of the vote and six seats in thestate parliament. On 13 March 2008, NPD leaderUdo Voigtwas charged withVolksverhetzung("incitement to hatred", a crime under the German criminal law), for distributing racially charged pamphlets referring to German footballerPatrick Owomoyela, whose father isNigerian. In 2009, Voigt was given a seven-month suspended sentence and ordered to donate 2,000eurostoUNICEF.
Since 2001, the German law enforcement agencies' (e.g. BKA, police and BfV) definition system for politically motivated crime (PMK) has included hate crimes motivated by group hatred in addition to traditional state security offences. This includes offences that are "directed against a person because of their political views, nationality, ethnicity, race, skin colour, religion, ideology, origin, or because of their external appearance, disability, sexual orientation or social status", as well as offences that are directed against an institution or object for precisely these reasons. TheFederal Criminal Police Officeclassifies offences as politically right-wing motivated "if references to ethnic nationalism, racism, social Darwinism or National Socialism were wholly or partially the cause of the offence".The "right-wing extremism potential" is defined by research as people with a "coherent right-wing extremist world view". The methods and criteria used to determine this are controversial.
Since March 2008, the crime statistics have also included unsolved or unsolvable propaganda offences as politically motivated crimes.For a long time, however, the state criminal investigation offices hardly ever investigated possible right-wing extremist motives in the case of non-organised individual perpetrators. A review of murder motives before 2015 resulted in considerable upward corrections to the state victim statistics, but was carried out without a standardised methodology. Victims' associations and experts continue to assume that the number of unreported offences is high.
List of state registered right-wing extremists:
State-registered right-wing extremist offences since 1990: