Overview

• Authorities carried out 6:00 a.m. searches on September 3 and seized smartphones and storage media from eight officers across Oldenburg, Osnabrück, Braunschweig, Lüneburg and the Central Police Directorate.
• Warrants covered nine suspected participants, and police said one officer named in a warrant was not found at his registered address.
• The group chat from November 2019 involved around a dozen men who knew each other from training at the Police Academy in Oldenburg and shared racist, ableist and Nazi‑trivializing content.
• The Interior Ministry says the 2019 messages are already criminally time‑barred, but any prosecutable material found on the seized devices would prompt criminal cases alongside ongoing disciplinary probes that could lead to dismissals.
• Officials noted prior personnel issues for some members, and political leaders and the police union urged firm consequences and stronger vetting without casting blanket suspicion on the wider force.