Police in the southern German town of Leonberg are investigating five school pupils for sharing far-right symbols and pornography in a chat group, a police spokeswoman said on Friday.
Police said they considered the actions to be teenage misbehaviour, and that the messages they shared with each other had not been sent to anyone outside the group chat.
Part of a letter to the pupils’ parents from the headmaster of their school, Klaus Nowotzin, was published in the mass-circulation Bild newspaper, in which the headmaster writes that the chat contained swastikas, the Hitler salute, sexualized caricatures and disparaging remarks about people with Down’s Syndrome.
An image of a machine gun and the subtitle “solves 1,800 asylum applications per minute” was also reportedly found. The headmaster subsequently contacted police over the issue.
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The south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg requires public schools to report any incidents of anti-Semitism, racism or acts against other religious minorities.
Susanne Eisenmann, the State’s Minister for Culture, called on the school to address the incident with the pupils.
“In cases such as the one in Leonberg, this should of course happen with the support of law enforcement authorities,” she said.
Eisenmann underlined the fact that far-right symbols and slogans – which are banned in Germany – as well as any discriminatory content have no place in schools.
“We are all called upon to stand up to anti-Semitism and to be watchful of any anti-Semitic tendencies,” she added.
dpa/NAN
