“Taz” research
Racism scandal among Johanniter and Malteser: hate speech and Hitler’s birthday in the Wache calendar
A Johanniter ambulance. In Cologne, employees with racist incidents were conspicuous.
© Imago Images
Actually, the employees of Johanniter and Malteser are there to help other people. Instead, however, some of them are said to have openly racistly etched against refugees, as the “Taz” reports.
There may have been repeated incidents with racist and openly right-wing backgrounds at the two major aid organizations “Malteser” and “Johanniter” in North Rhine-Westphalia. The machinations have now been exposed as a result of research by the “Taz”.
According to “Taz”, the birthdays of Adolf Hitler, Goebbels and Eva Braun, among other things, were entered in a wall calendar in a Johanniter police station in Cologne. Paramedic Guido Schäpe reported the process to his superiors, according to “Taz”. However, his employers did not intervene, but ended up resigning Schäpe himself without notice.
Open racism in rescue operations
The calendar was not an isolated case, and there were also racist incidents during operations: for example, rescue workers would have shouted “mop” loudly at the sight of black people on the street, a macabre game to “pass the time”.
Apparently also popular: When caring for those in need of help, the diagnosis “Bosporus disease” was repeatedly made. There is no such thing, what was meant was that “southerners” had complained about pain that was not so bad. However, such scientific nonsense can be dangerous for those affected: if paramedics and doctors do not take their own pain seriously, there is a risk of serious health consequences.
Malteser: Better to set fire to a refugee home than to help refugees
Helping is actually the job of the Malteser paramedics. In fact, an employee at a rescue station in North Rhine-Westphalia is said to have said before an operation that he would rather set the refugee home on fire than help the refugees. Other employees in this station also exchanged racist and sexist memes in a chat group.
According to “Taz”, some rescue workers have come out as AfD fans, others have expressed Reich citizen slogans. According to the information, rescue workers from both guards reported cases in which patients had been treated worse for racist reasons. Despite Schäpe’s advice, some of the rescue workers are said to still be working for the Johanniter Unfallhilfe despite the abnormalities with right-wing extremist and racist incidents.
Johanniter and Malteser: No idea and no evidence?
According to Johannitern, the allegations were already being investigated in 2020, but at that time “no evidence” was found for the claims. The Maltese are similarly ignorant: A spokesman said they had not previously been aware of the allegations.
The Malteser are a Catholic charity and the Johanniter a Protestant charity. Both go out on hundreds of thousands of rescue missions every year. The organizations assured on Saturday a comprehensive investigation of the allegations.
Sources: DPA, “Taz”, “Welcome Home”