‘In Berlin there are 8 500 open arrest warrants’

The security authorities are often unable to enforce arrest warrants because of staff shortages, Knispel noted. “In Berlin alone, we have figures that are so high that they caused a stir: Around 1 633 people have an open warrant. Counting all the arrest warrants, including those of the escaped prisoners, the wanted for custody, execution of sentences, expulsion or placement, could even be more than 8 500, as of March 2018, alone in Berlin,” he told German daily Die Welt.

Thus, the shortage of staff also led to 52 000 unfinished reports waiting for processing at the Berlin Forensic Science laboratory. This has resulted in the fact that DNA analyzes of home burglaries are only available after two or three years.

Knispel hit the headlines earlier after a Berlin clan chief had threatened him in the courtroom.

The sense of security of the population has decreased too. Knispel emphasized that there are areas in the capital, including on public transport, where citizens no dare to enter. “In addition, there are areas in Berlin, in which the police dare only go in groups, because simple radio crews are exposed to excessive risk.”

The prosecutor named the area around the Rigaer Straße and Liebigstraße in Friedrichshain. But also in immigrant areas Kreuzberg and Neukölln, police are regularly attacked.

Although Justice Senator Dirk Behrend has provided new jobs and means to fight crime, that will not be enough as there are no signs nationwide for a significant turnaround in staff numbers.

Germans, plagued by censorship on issues related to migrant crime, has seen their tax funding diverted to fight political opponents instead.

The former spy chief Hans-Georg Maaßen has meanwhile compared the quality of media in the Federal Republic to that of the former East German press.

When the Green politician Volker Beck asked Maaßen if censorship and state-controlled media were now similar to that of the former GDR, the spy boss answered: “Yes. Censorship takes place in the Federal Republic in 2019. Yes, media are controlled by the state. And everyone knows that.”

Wolfgang Herles, former head of the state-funded ZDF studio in Bonn, admitted at the beginning of 2016 that “there are indeed instructions from above”.

Concealment and downplaying is especially rampant since 2015 when it comes to migrant crime. In October 2015, for example, regional newspaper the Kieler Nachrichten reported that the state police unofficially urged journalists to conceal “relevant events” about the “refugee” situation.

In November 2015, a LKA official in the Hannoversche Allgemeine complained that the police were downplaying migrant crime, especially incidents in the shelters – for “civil peace”.

Last week, Georg Restle, the current “monitoring” chief, demanded in the Tagesthemen that the AfD be given “no room, no stage and certainly no voice”, thus calling for the complete ostracism of the opposition.