Christoph Gramm, the president of military counterintelligence, said his agency was currently investigating 600 soldiers, 20 of them in the KSK alone, which has about 1,400 members.
“Elite units such as these have cultural factors that may develop into susceptibilities,” Mr. Gramm recently told The New York Times. “For example if there is a misguided sense of tolerance.”
“The soldiers have an elitist self-confidence,” he added. “They have special capabilities and skills and a well-developed sense of loyalty. Such a mind-set can involve risks.”
Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer, the defense minister, said the military counterintelligence service, known as the MAD, had failed in its mission to monitor and detect extremism in recent years.
“The work of the MAD was not satisfactory,” she said, adding, “and it’s still not enough.”
The KSK turns 25 next year. Many hope that it will have rooted out its far-right extremists by then. “The KSK needs to be our elite for freedom and democracy,” said Eva Högl, the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces.
But for that to happen, Ms. Högl said, the authorities have to live up to their recent vows to shine a light in all corners of Germany’s institutions.
Such vows have been made before.
In the early 2000s, members of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi terrorist group, killed nine immigrants and a police officer over seven years. One of the killers was a former soldier. Paid informants in the domestic intelligence agency helped to hide the group’s leaders and to build its network. When the case finally came to trial, it emerged that key files had been shredded by the agency.
Source : Nytimes
