Berlin (dpa) – Germany’s new military ombudswoman, Eva Hoegl, wants to get tough on tackling right-wing extremism in the military, she told dpa ahead of her swearing-in ceremony on Thursday.
Hoegl said she was immediately willing to work with a new task force within the Defence Ministry set up to probe extremism in the Bundeswehr army.
The group was created due to extremism in the ranks of the army’s Special Commando Forces (KSK) and following the discovery of a secret weapons cache.
It is to present its findings and recommendations to lawmakers before the parliamentary summer recess.
The topic of right-wing extremism must be discussed “really thoroughly, fundamentally and in general,” Hoegl said.
“There is one thing that is very important to me: This does not imply any blanket suspicion, neither towards the KSK nor the Bundeswehr as a whole, but it is also not just a collection of individual cases,” she added.
“So we must also look at what we have to do to change the structures in such a way that such attitudes do not spread and to strengthen those soldiers who oppose them.”
Hoegl is a politician with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition, and was appointed to the role of military ombudswoman earlier in the month.
The 51-year-old is now just the second woman to have held the role, in which she will act as lawyer to the German armed forces.
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