A Hessian police officer was sentenced on Tuesday to a fine of 90 daily rates of 70 euros each for incitement to hatred and the use of unconstitutional symbols in a total of eight cases.

He had shared pictures and videos with National Socialist symbols and racist content in a chat group.

Sarah Wagener

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For example, in the news he compared a group of praying Muslims to the game Minesweeper, in which the player has to find hidden bombs.

Another picture shows Adolf Hitler with the caption “Weekend at last.

full throttle".

According to his own statement, he did not create the content himself, but took it from various Internet sources.

The currently released police officer admitted that he sent the messages himself.

Satirical or critical interpretation

There were 57 members in the group chat, all of whom, according to the convict, were current or former members of his agency.

He himself had written about 300 messages there;

the district court heard about eleven of them.

In three cases, the judge acquitted him because she saw opportunities for a satirical or critical interpretation.

The defense emphasized that it was a private and closed group where a lot of "bad humor, rubbish and crap" was shared.

It cannot be seen from the news that the convict's aim was to revive National Socialist ideas.

However, the court largely followed the arguments of the public prosecutor.

Accordingly, the convict spread unconstitutional symbols among the members and possibly beyond through the chat.

Since this is only permitted in the context of political education, with clearly recognizable opposition or in the context of art and satire, he was guilty of eight counts.

In addition, the court emphasized his role model function as a civil servant and his knowledge of criminal law.

As a police officer, he should therefore know that the dissemination of National Socialist symbols is prohibited.

Messages as "stupidities"

On the other hand, the fact that the crimes took place between December 2014 and June 2016, which is a long time ago, had a mitigating effect.

The convict also showed remorse and described the news as stupid things that were due to his immaturity at the time.

Other members of the same chat group had previously been convicted of similar crimes, the district court confirmed.

The Hessian police are also under pressure because of right-wing extremist chat groups that were discovered in 2018 as part of the "NSU 2.0" investigations.