German elite soldiers are neonazis

This 18 February 2020 German NDR TV video says about itself, translated:

Instead of clarifying at last whether the Hitler salute was shown at a farewell party for a lieutenant colonel, the Bundeswehr [German army] preferred to slander the only [female] witness.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV, 5 March 2020:

German commando unit hotbed of extreme right-wing ideas

Nine soldiers from the German Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK) are punished for expressing Nazi sympathies. Another ten colleagues are suspected of similar facts. …

For a long time there were suspicions against various members of the KSK. The Kommando Spezialkräfte are among the best trained elite troops in the world. They often operate under the radar in war zones such as Afghanistan. Due to the secret and closed nature of the unit, little is known about the behavior of the soldiers.

Nazi rock

That changed last year due to various reports about right-wing extremist sympathies within the unit. Eg, members are said to have listened to neo-Nazi rock music at parties and brought the Hitler salute, which is punishable in Germany.

The military intelligence service MAD investigated at least twenty KSK members. Only in one case did the suspicion prove unfounded. Nine members are punished, investigations are still being conducted against the others. The sanctions range from disciplinary measures to dismissal and possibly prosecution.

The fact that so many extreme right-wing people are in the elite corps of the German armed forces (the KSK has about a thousand members) seems to have surprised the army leadership and politicians. …

Germany has been struggling with a new increase in right-wing extremist violence for a number of years. In the past nine months, there has been a … attack on a synagogue in Halle, the murder of politician Walter Lübcke and the killing in Hanau of nine people with an immigrant background.

German media also regularly report on extreme right-wing sympathies among the armed forces and the police. There is said be a group culture in which racist or fascist expressions are looked the other way by colleagues, and in which others are not reported.

German politics are accused of having closed their eyes to scathing racism and anti-Semitism in German society for too long. There was an intense hope that such sympathies would never again arise after the horrors of the Second World War. In reality, those feelings have never completely disappeared.

That became clear in 2011, for example, through the revealing of the Nationalsozialistische Untergund (NSU): a neo-Nazi terror organization that appeared to have committed various racist murders. …

Just yesterday, police raided homes of twelve members of the Aryan Circle Germany, an extreme right-wing network, on suspicion of preparing violence against foreigners.