In the discussion on how to deal with SEK officers of the Frankfurt police, the Hessian Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) defended his tough line on Thursday.

The occasion was an interview that three officials had given anonymously to the Hessischer Rundfunk.

They had turned to the public broadcaster to present their version there, as in other media.

In doing so, they once again stated that they felt unjustly persecuted, even though "just as law and justice" apply to them.

They have "broken".

Katharina Iskandar

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Regarding the controversial statements that the prosecution is investigating for incitement to hatred and the use of unconstitutional symbols, they said that “crude language” had been used in the chats.

But that has nothing to do with right-wing extremist sentiments.

When Hitler or swastika pictures were sent, "it was supposedly meant in a satirical and funny way".

A ministry spokesman said on Thursday that the statements of the three officials were taken with astonishment. As before in interviews given anonymously to other media, it was once again found that the officers acted as victims instead of dealing with the allegations. "The obvious lack of awareness of wrongdoing and the stringing together of self-serving theses and arguments not only disqualify this anonymous criticism: They underline that these men are also unsuitable in character for work in the SEK."

Among other things, statements such as those that only the SEK, but not the GSG9, can cope with missions at Frankfurt Airport with aircraft on the ground have also aroused astonishment in security circles.

In the interview it was said: “When the GSG9 is fetched, it takes two to three hours.

Then they first train on the parallel plane. "

Exaggeration of your own perception

From circles of the Federal Police it was said that this is not only factually wrong, but also testifies to an exaggeration of one's own perception. The arrival of the GSG-9 officials is guaranteed "within a very short time", the forces are specialized in operations on the aircraft. The spokesman for the Hessian Ministry of the Interior was also surprised by the statements made by the SEK officials. “The federal government and the state of Hesse have had a very close and trusting cooperation for years. The GSG9 has excellent capabilities that are indispensable. "

The FDP parliamentary group in the state parliament nevertheless expressed a lack of understanding for Beuth's approach.

"If the interior minister was convinced that the allegations against the officials were so serious that they could no longer be used in the SEK, then he should have acted immediately," said the security policy spokesman Stefan Müller.

"The hasty dissolution of the SEK by Beuth was political activism and puts Hesse's security at risk," commented Klaus Herrmann, domestic policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament.

Hermann Schaus, the domestic political spokesman for the Left Party's parliamentary group in the state parliament, said he was "dismayed" by the statements made by the SEK officials.

They had "put racist, inhuman and disgusting sayings and photos into perspective and trivialized", that "knocks the bottom out of the barrel".