Reporting from Berlin: Police cadets disdain Holocaust indictrination

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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From The Times
March 23, 2007

German neo-Nazi fear over police cadets

Roger Boyes in Berlin

Fears that the German police force contains neo-Nazi sympathisers 
have been sparked after disdainful cadets delivered an extraordinary 
rebuff to a Holocaust survivor.

Students at the Berlin police academy refused to listen to the 
harrowing testimony of Isaak Behar, 83, who had been invited to 
lecture them on his experiences as a Jew in the Third Reich. Mr Behar 
lost his parents and his two sisters in the Auschwitz concentration 
camp.

The cadets shouted that they did not want to hear about the Holocaust 
any more, and said that the Jewish community was emotionally 
blackmailing Germany, according to German press reports. Dieter 
Glietsch, Berlin's police commissioner, has opened an investigation.

German police officers are given compulsory Holocaust-awareness 
training. Visits to sites where Nazis murdered or deported Jews are 
part of the curriculum.

Mr Behar and other Jewish survivors frequently lecture at police and 
army colleges. "There have always been antiSemitic incidents in the 
army as well as the police," said Mr Behar. "But senior officers take 
action when they hear of them."

This episode, though, which occurred on Feb 27, is seen as part of a 
broader and more menacing trend. Last month it was revealed that at 
least three police bodyguards assigned to protect Michael Friedman, a 
leading Jewish activist, were neo-Nazi sympathisers.

One dressed in his free time in a black SS uniform and put 
photographs of himself on the internet. Another printed out a fake 
certificate declaring himself to be a member of the SS "M.F" Division 
— M.F. being the intitals of Michael Friedman, who was for many years 
the deputy chairman of the German Jewish community. The wording of 
the certificate began: "In the Name of the Föhrer . . ." mimicking a 
genuine SS document.

Yet another police guard stored the Nazi anthem, the Horst Wessel 
song, on his computer and played it out loud when colleagues were in 
the room. The policemen claimed that they were no more than harmless 
pranks.

But Mr Friedman, who has received many death threats because of his 
vociferous support for Jewish causes, is taking the case seriously.

He has demanded a parliamentary inquiry from the state of Hesse, 
which is responsible for protecting him. According to the mass 
circulation newspaper Bild, one of the investigated bodguards 
threatened "to spill the beans about far-right activity at Frankfurt 
police headquarters" if charges were pressed against him.

The bodyguards have been suspended from duty. The German press and 
Police Workers' Association have called for their dismissal from the 
force.

"These incidents show that far-right thinking is now anchored in the 
mainstream of German society," said Mr Friedman, "and it is 
increasingly obvious in the police force".

That sentiment was echoed by Andreas Nachama, a leading rabbi. "This 
antisemitism is appearing everywhere and it is as threatening as it 
is reprehensible."

Insiders say that police antisemitism is usually more discreet, 
confined to comments at the police station after a stint of duty.

The guarding of Jewish sites, from synagogues to the Jewish Museum in 
Berlin, is particularly unpopular among the police rank-and-file. 
Their task is to head off neo-Nazi attacks or report antisemitic 
symbols daubed on buildings overnight.


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