Martin Hess
Federal Police Commissioner
German Bundestag, June 18, 2020,
Plenarprotokoll 19/166, pp. 20692-20693
[Martin
Hess is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Baden-Württemberg.
He is a police officer and here responds to a motion by the Green party to
establish a Federal Police Commissioner.]
Right honorable Herr President. Honored
colleagues.
Allow me to begin with a clear statement in
regards the present and on-going racism campaign against our police: There is
no structural racism in the police.
Despite adverse conditions, our police
officers perform outstanding work. The basis of their proceedings is not the skin
color or ethnicity of a man but his conduct. That is also shown in the
statistics. Of the 1.9 million police actions in Baden-Württemberg in the year
2019, there were only four – I reiterate: four – charges on account of
ethnic-based discrimination. Where there has been misconduct by officers, the
police and the courts are very much disposed to consequently and effectively
punish this. For that, neither a Federal police commissioner nor an ostensibly
independent proceedings office are required. So finally stop asserting the
opposite! What you are pursuing is not the justified criticism of state
institutions, but an act of contempt for
our police and judiciary! Therefore, in no case can your motion be supported.
Those who believe that the police and judiciary can be defamed, must be
consequently ordered with all vigor to stop.
Yet, right honorable ladies and gentlemen of
the Greens, with you, it is quite certainly not about the fight against what is
in fact wrong, or the elimination of the same. Wherever you go, it is to spread
the general suspicion of racism against the men and women who undertake to
guarantee the security of our citizens. The acceptance of your motion would
lead to the result of providing cover to a greater degree than hitherto for
clan criminals, perpetrators with migrant backgrounds and violent, left-wing
extremists so as to hinder proceedings and
prosecutions. We will resolutely oppose this sabotage of our state’s ability to
function.
The left-wing parties wish to pursue at the
Federal level what their friends in the parties have begun in the Berlin Senate.
In Berlin, police officers themselves must now prove not to have initiated the
discrimination for which they have been reproached. The destructive
consequences of this reversal of the burden of proof are already evident:
Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg want to suspend the support response [Unterstützungseinsätze] in Berlin.
Vice
President Hans-Peter Friedrich: Herr colleague, will you allow an
interim
question?
Not now. The police union in Nordrhein-Westphalen,
closely connected with the Berlin government parties, demands no more police be
sent to Berlin. Even Interior Minister Seehofer has announced a halt to the
Federal police Unterstützungseinsätze in
Berlin so as to avoid a wave of complaints. This reversal of the burden of
proof, let it be clearly and distinctly said, is an unreasonable and unbearable
imposition upon our state of law and the police and must be done away with as
quickly as possible.
The SPD, Greens and Linke wish to impede
effective police work so that their clientele can develop, as unhindered as possible,
their destructive, anti-state activities.
André
Hahn (Linke): What nonsense!
This security policy madness must be
resolutely opposed by every convinced democrat because we have no racism
problem in the police but we do have a left-wing extremism problem in the
German Bundestag! SPD chief Saskia Esken recently and openly declared her
sympathy for the Antifa, thus for that left-wing extremist group which is
responsible for massive attacks upon our police officers. Frau Esken also
believes she can identify latent racism in the ranks of the security forces in
Germany.
For quick, political profit, you do not
shrink from injuring the outstanding reputation of our police. Yet that – it is
absolutely clear to me – will hasten the continuing collapse of the SPD, since the
citizens in Germany will no longer tolerate these persistent, unsubstantiated imputations
of racism.
The truth is, the police are not the
perpetrators but the victims of violence. In Germany, the state prosecutors
offices investigate each year 2,000 cases of illegal infractions by police
officers and less than one percent result in a conviction. That is not because our
judiciary might be prejudiced, that is because the accusations in almost all
cases turn out to be unfounded. Yet – colleague Middelberg has already
mentioned this – each year, 38,000 police officers will be victims of acts of
violence, and the trend is increasing. Finally effectively fight the yearly
increasing violence against the police and response forces, instead of making
common cause with the Antifa enemies of the police.
And the CDU
and CSU – I unfortunately cannot now spare you – are allowing the public
service and thereby our police to be placed under a general suspicion. Under the
overall control of the Interior Minister, the Federal Office for the Defense of
the Constitution has installed a so-called “Center for the Clarification of
Right-wing Extremist Agitation in the Public Service” [Zentralstelle zur Aufklärung rechtsextremistischer Umtriebe im
öffentlichen Dienst]. The concept of “agitation” alone is a matter fit for debate.
Yet he who installs such an office introduces the possibility of going beyond reference
to a single instance of racism and right-wing extremism to that there could in
fact be a structural problem in the German public service. You thereby damage
the reputation of the German police and all the public service. That once again
shows how Green in the meantime even the CSU has become. Therefore: Put an end
to this cloud of suspicion against the public service! This center is to be
immediately done away with!
…Yet so long as enemies of the state in the
Berlin Senate
André
Hahn (Linke): Who are here in the Bundestag!
decide over the working conditions of the
police, and so long as left-wing extremists, with the support of the Union,
nominate constitutional judges in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, so the fish stinks
from the head. I can therefore only appeal to the colleagues of the Union: Stop
this appeasement! The fact is and remains: The Linke, Greens and Reds are and
remain the political enemies of our police.
As a police officer and a politician, I
appeal to the SPD, Green and Linke delegations: Stop igniting and further
heating up an anti-police state of mind. You thereby endanger the state
monopoly of force. Show that you will not tolerate agitation against our
police. Condemn with complete clarity the language of hate with which the
leftist journalists instigate violence against police officers.
In the “taz”, an author could,
Konstantin
Kuhle (FDP): Naturally she could.
on June 15, ascribe to our police an “authoritarian
personality” and a “fascist mind-set” and in de-humanizing terms defame the
colleagues as “trash”.
Marianne
Schieder (SPD): That you could generally read.
This language we recognize as coming almost
exclusively from the followers of the extremist left Antifa. All honest and
convinced democrats must clearly and effectively condemn such unacceptable
agitation against our police. Who even only tolerates the charge has
disqualified himself from being taken seriously as a political factor in our
country.
Vice
President Hans-Peter Friedrich: Herr colleague, please come to an end.
I come to a conclusion. The AfD clearly and
distinctly stands behind our police. Certainly in times when are seen to be
presented unjustifiable insinuations of racism and right-wing extremism, it is
important to send a signal of backing and support to our police. Our police are
neither racists nor right-wing extremists and therefore all the motions are to
be consequently rejected.
[Translated
by Todd Martin]
