You have to imagine the Bremen public prosecutor’s office as a happy authority. At least when it comes to offering rewards to catch criminals or obtain information.
Other federal states have extensive regulations that regulate who can offer rewards and in what amount. In Saxony, for example, the President of the State Criminal Police Office is allowed to offer rewards of up to 12,500 euros. Anything higher than that must be approved by the Ministry of Justice.
Things are different in Bremen. There the public prosecutor’s office can decide from individual case to individual case and in individual cases Paint attack on the home of the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution she has just offered a reward of 25,000 euros.
It is obvious that the height has a symbolic character. “We want to send a clear signal,” says the spokeswoman for the Bremen public prosecutor’s office. It’s about an attack on the private environment of the head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution from the presumably left-wing extremist scene. They want to use “all resources”.
Very different treatment
25,000 euros is a high amount for a reward. If you ask the public prosecutor’s office where the money comes from, it takes a few official loops before the public prosecutor knows and can tell you that the money comes from its own budget. However, she cannot or does not want to say anything about lower and upper limits.
What can be said is that cases of this type are treated very differently. In Berlin, for example, where the house of… Kultursenators Joe Chialo (CDU) State security investigated whether a paint attack was carried out, but there is no word of any reward being offered. In fact, you don’t have to look beyond national borders to find very different ways of dealing with color attacks for political reasons.
At the beginning of January there was an apparently racist attack on a restaurant in the Bremen district of Huchting, in which windows were smashed and right-wing symbols were left behind. Almost at the same time there were several paint attacks on members of the left and committed citizens in the Walle district; The perpetrators had thrown Christmas balls filled with paint onto four residential buildings on which anti-right posters were hanging.
And another member of the left in the district had one the day before Christmas A large amount of brown liquid was dumped on the doorstepafter right-wing district politicians posted racist videos against him on social media.
A reward is only available for information about the attack on the head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The Left Party made all six attacks public in mid-January. Several neighbors are also said to have hung anti-fascist posters in their windows afterwards, says one of those affected. There was also a statement of solidarity from the Greens.
Die However, reactions from all other political actors at the time remained manageable: Neither the SPD nor the CDU nor the FDP publicly expressed their dismay. There was no common condemnation of the attacks among the citizenry. The Interior Senator said nothing publicly about the attacks. And the public prosecutor’s office?
At first she doesn’t know exactly whether she offered a reward for the attacks against the left in January – “That was a while ago.” Then you force yourself to get some information: a reward that is only available for information about the attack on him Head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. “This is ultimately an attack on a constitutional institution.”says the speaker. “There’s nothing politically colored here.”