Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) has assured that the Bundestag administration will investigate "every indication of misconduct by employees, especially members of the police in the German Bundestag".
The background is a report by the “taz”, which deals with alleged right-wing extremist incidents involving the in-house federal police.
"Possible suspected cases, especially with politically extreme or racist references, are clearly and consistently investigated within the framework of the law," said Schäuble on Friday.
The Bundestag administration is a heterogeneous, diverse administration and takes very seriously any suspicion that affects trust in the rule of law and the integrity of the administration.
The "taz" reports on its own research, which would have shown that several officers of the Bundestag police had made right-wing extremist statements or acted unconstitutional. For example, a police officer was involved in a Reich Citizens' Party, another called for demonstrations of the so-called lateral thinking movement and also took part in the demonstration in August 2020 that culminated in the attempted assault on the Reichstag. According to a colleague, another police officer showed the Hitler salute several times in the break room and imitated the voice of Adolf Hitler. Another would still refer to Namibia today as German South West Africa. In addition, according to current and former Bundestag police officers, right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic content was regularly disseminated in chat groups used for work.
A spokesman for the Bundestag announced on request that a total of three events had become known from the police department at the German Bundestag since 2013, which the administration had followed up directly and intensively. In no case, however, had a suspicion been confirmed. For example, a disciplinary procedure initiated in 2019 against a police officer on suspicion of a violation of the civil servant's obligation to be constitutional through unconstitutional statements was discontinued because the suspicion had not been confirmed. Another official identified himself as a member of a motorcycle group on his social media page. The suspicion of a violation of the political duty of loyalty, which has not been substantiated, was examined.
According to the spokesman, there was also a conversation with two officers of the Bundestag police. They were confronted by a "taz" journalist with the statement of a colleague about a Hitler salute incident. According to the Bundestag spokesman, neither police officer confirmed the incident. The Bundestag administration was not aware of any other issues mentioned in the report, he said. "If there are concrete indications, the Bundestag administration will, as in the past, investigate intensively."