Dienst zu ungünstigen Zeiten (duty in awkward times)

Police misconduct and police violence have always existed in Germany. What has changed, however, is that these cases are now better documented and the intensity of public criticism towards the police has increased immensely. Since May 25, 2020, when George Floyd was killed by police officers in Minneapolis during a violent arrest, the issue has reached the center of society. Especially affected members of minorities and migrant-read people demand an end to police violence, discrimination and institutional racism. At the same time, new cases of right-wing extremist chat groups of police officers as well as right-wing extremist networks within the security authorities are becoming public on a regular basis. With an increase of right-wing terrorism, the question arises as to whether the police in their current form are really capable of protecting all population groups in Germany to the same extent.

There is still a lack of a clear commitment by the police and the government to anti-racism and transparency, as well as the declared goal of establishing a healthy and sustainable culture of error within the police. In terms of security policy, it is incomprehensible how the fundamental rights of minorities and their trust in the German state and police, are sacrificed for a subjectively higher sense of security for the white majority population. As a member of the white majority in Germany, I am not affected by racism and statistically hardly by police violence. Nevertheless, it is precisely the task of this majority society not to accept a security policy that is used as a discriminatory element against minorities.

In this book, I present an alternative perspective on the German police. It is not a friend and helper for all citizens of this country in the same way, but also an omnipresent potential threat. In recent years, German police authorities have been massively upgraded and their legal scope of action has been expanded with the help of stricter police task laws. At the same time, neither parliamentary oversight of policy nor the transparency of police actions increased. Currently, there seems to be no effective way to protect the population from a police force that abuses its monopoly on the use of force and the trust placed in it.