The United States is increasingly convinced that its police have a systemic problem with racism and extremism.
But it is not the only country to be worried about such a drift: in Germany, several recent cases have brought up the subject, highly sensitive in view of the country's history, in the national debate.
The layoff of 30 police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia on Wednesday September 16 and Thursday September 17, as part of an investigation into five far-right internet discussion groups has shocked the country.
Images of Hitler, montages of migrants dragged into gas chambers, xenophobic remarks recalling the darkest hours of German history were exchanged without restraint.
Around 200 incidents in 2019
These groups appear to have been active since at least 2015, a spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“It's a shame” for the police in this region, he said.
But for observers, this is no longer just a problem specific to one Land or another.
“A new case of a police officer linked to the extreme right seems to erupt every month or so and almost everywhere in Germany”, underlines Robert Lüdecke, expert on the extreme right at the Amadeu Antonio foundation, a research and prevention center of racism and anti-Semitism, contacted by France 24.
#Beiunsauch: in Germany, police violence and racism underestimated
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By the end of 2019, Bavarian police investigators discovered that around 40 active and retired police officers were participating in far-right forums.
Earlier that same year, a network of extremist survivalists, to which the police belonged, was dismantled in the Land of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
One of these agents was even in charge of gathering weapons for possible violent actions targeting left-wing figures and supporting the German government's migration policy.
In all, more than 200 incidents involving law enforcement officials with far-right ideas were recorded last year by public radio Deutschlandfunk which carried out a survey of the interior ministries of sixteen Länders.
“It is clear that we can no longer say that these are only isolated cases”, recognizes Jonas Grutzpalk, sociologist and instructor at the North Rhine-Westphalia Police Academy, contacted by France 24. “Too much For a long time, we were told that it was some bad fruit or local events, but I hope that this new incident will finally accept that we are facing a much larger problem, ”adds Robert Lüdecke.
Feeling of impunity
A problem which stems in part from a malaise in the police.
“The young people we train to become a police officer are often very confident men, with a strong desire to serve the state.
But when they are confronted with the reality on the ground, they are constantly forced to make compromises, which gives rise to intense frustration ”, explains Jonas Grutzpalk.
Frustration that the Internet then takes care of directing towards extremist ideas thanks to the famous “filter bubbles” of social networks.
In the discussion groups, these young officers are confronted, continuously, and without further ado, with the same speech accusing the State of not fulfilling its mission of public order and “because of their personality, they feel in the right to do the work in place of the State deemed to be failing, ”notes the sociologist.
Their outlet then naturally becomes the foreigner in a “Germany which has failed to reinvent itself as an inclusive society in the aftermath of the migration crisis.
Even our vocabulary - we talk about Ausländer (the one who comes from outside) or Mitbürger (the citizen who lives with us) - is still not very inclusive ”, regrets Jonas Grutzpalk.
In this context, the speeches of politicians aiming to minimize the phenomenon amount to adding fuel to the fire.
“The police have the impression that their hierarchy and the political decision-makers will not take real sanctions against these excesses, which gives them a feeling of impunity”, underlines Robert Lüdecke.
For him, Germany is making the same mistake it made in the 1990s with the neo-Nazi terrorist group NSU.
At the time, the authorities refused to consider the possibility of a far-right threat in a Germany that she wanted to believe cured of her demons of the past.
As a result, the members of this small group were able to act with impunity for nearly a decade.
This parallel seems a bit excessive, according to Jonas Grutzpalk.
“In my classes [at the police academy] the only political threat we talk about is the extreme right.
Not that of the extreme left, nor Islamist! ”, He affirms, stressing that, this time, the police institution is aware of the danger.
He acknowledges, however, that the image authorities have of the far right to watch out for may be a bit dated.
“There is still a lot of talk about historic German guns with Hitler and the neo-Nazis, and very little about this 'New Right', which is very fashionable on the Internet and which is increasingly attractive”, he explains.
Not yet an American-style systemic problem
If the two experts agree that the worm of extremism is eating away at the German interior police, it is not yet an American-style systemic problem, they believe.
“In the United States, we have the impression that the police are a state within a state, which is not yet the case in Germany, where we still manage to punish police officers who break the rules,” says Robert Lüdecke.
For Jonas Grutzpalk, “the big difference is that if Germany follows a dangerous course, there is still time to rectify it, while in the United States it seems that it is necessary to start from scratch”.
A first step to get back on the right track would already be to assess the real extent of the damage thanks to a national study on the extreme right in the police force.
The Greens and the Social Democrats of the SPD (one of the components of the government) have been asking for a long time to fill this statistical vacuum, but Horst Seehofer, the very conservative Minister of the Interior does not want to hear anything.
After the revelations about the extremist police officers of North Rhine-Westphalia, he reiterated that such a study would risk, wrongly, discrediting the entire police institution.
However, “this would make it possible to bring a little scientific rigor to a debate which currently arouses a lot of emotion and passion,” notes Jonas Grutzpalk.
Feelings that play into the game of extremes, and in particular the populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), fears Robert Lüdecke.
“In the absence of a reasonable debate with precise data, we leave the field open to AfD propaganda which feeds so well on people's fear,” he says.
Having a better understanding of the evil will also make it possible to better adapt the response to be provided, which is urgent, note the two experts.
Because otherwise, the scenario seems to them written in advance and it does not have a happy ending.
On the one hand, “the police will get lost in their parallel nationalist reality, which will disconnect them from the real problems and prevent them from doing their job properly”, notes Jonas Grutzpalk.
On the other hand, “the population's mistrust of the police institution will only grow and people will risk no longer daring to turn to it”, analyzes Robert Lüdecke.
In short, an American-style scenario ...
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