Saxony’s Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) recently presented the sixth situation report of the Coordination Office for the Prevention of and Fight against Extremism (KostEx) to the state cabinet. According to the report, in the period from 1 January to 30 June 2023, seven cases concerning eight persons with an extremist connection became known in the Free State, which led to the initiation of an examination of measures under service or labour law.
These were exclusively employees of the Saxony police, including three police trainees. The cases were related to the trivialisation or glorification of National Socialism and the use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations. Six of the seven new suspicious cases in the first half of 2023 involved posts or statements in social media. One case concerned the use of images trivialising National Socialism in private life.
Schuster explained: “We look closely and consistently follow up on every suspicious case, because there is no place for extremists in the civil service. Every case is one too many! We will not slacken our efforts in this regard. The number of cases under investigation shows that it is a very small number of cases and that we must not place our staff under general suspicion.”
