Right-wing extremism in the Bundeswehr is a topic that the Bundeswehr has been dealing with for a long time. The ARD magazine Panorama recently reported on a case that occurred in 2017.
According to information from Panorama (daserste.ndr.de/panorama), around 60 active and former elite soldiers of the Bundeswehr met in April 2017 at a training site near Sindelfingen to celebrate the company commander.
The company commander went through a kind of course, cut fruit with swords and threw pig heads around. The company commander began several times to give the Hitler salute to right-wing rock music. An eyewitness reported anonymously in the ARD magazine Panorama about the evening. According to Panorama, your statements matched various chat messages and flight tickets that Panorama was able to see.
The Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office determined and came to the conclusion that the accounts of the eyewitness were credible. In 2018, a penalty order of 4,000 euros was issued against the company commander, which the soldier also accepted (daserste.ndr.de/panorama).
Bundeswehr continues to determine in disciplinary proceedings
If there is a criminal conviction, the findings are binding for the military disciplinary attorney and the discharge authority (Section 84 (1) WDO).
If, on the other hand, a soldier has been legally acquitted, the acquittal constitutes an obstacle to the process that makes disciplinary prosecution inadmissible and forces the proceedings to be discontinued (BDHE 5, 66; 7, 146).
A penalty order has no binding effect
In principle, only actual findings of a legally binding criminal judgment (Section 260 (1) sentence 1 StPO) or a judgment in fine proceedings (Section 71 OWiG in conjunction with Section 411 StPO) are binding.
According to Section 410 (3) StPO, a penalty order is equivalent to a final judgment, unless an objection has been raised in good time. According to the established case law of the Federal Administrative Court, however, it cannot trigger any binding effect because it does not contain any judicial findings on the question of fact and guilt (BVerwGE 83, 373, 375; 93, 255).
Lawyer Christian Steffgen recommends that soldiers concerned seek advice from a lawyer specializing in military law immediately. In his experience, however, many soldiers make detailed – often pages long – statements and only then go to the lawyer. In doing so, they fail to recognize that the “boss” is not in charge of the proceedings, but only the extended arm of the military disciplinary attorney and, due to the notification in criminal matters, also of the public prosecutor.
The author of the legal advice, lawyer and specialist lawyer for criminal law and traffic law, Christian Steffgen, worked as a recommendation and contract lawyer for the DBwV from 2001-2015 with a focus on criminal proceedings, disciplinary proceedings and dismissal proceedings. He is a lieutenant colonel in the reserve and an active reservist. Since 2001, lawyer Steffgen has already suspended many proceedings before the courts and the military disciplinary attorney.
Photo: copyright fotolia.com/Fotolia_128408952_M
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