A thin blue line as a sign of a "police family" - among some officers this symbolism is popular. However, the State Criminal Police Office warns of "collecting by extremist circles".
Munich (dpa / lby) - According to the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA), police officers in the Free State should refrain from wearing articles with the "Thin Blue Line". In the case of the thin blue line – mostly on a black background – wearing “even outside of work is discouraged because of the ambivalent symbolic content,” said a spokesman in Munich. Use is prohibited while on duty. In an "information offer" on the symbol for police officers, which is available to the German Press Agency, the authority writes of an "appropriation by extremist circles". First the blog netzpolitik.org reported about it.
Accordingly, the symbol probably originated from the military designation "Thin Red Line" for a marching formation during the Crimean War in the middle of the 19th century. In the 20th century, the "Thin Blue Line" was repeatedly used in the USA in the context of the police - as a sign of solidarity with investigators killed in the line of duty, but also as a symbol of a last line between civilization and anarchy.
Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, expressed this view in the weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit in 2018: "The police officers who protect citizens and enforce law and order are the 'thin blue line', the civilization of Anarchy separates. If we let that line break, chaos is not far away." Demonstrators also used flags with the "Thin Blue Line" during the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021.
The chairman of the police union in Bavaria, Peter Pytlik, sees the symbol above all as a sign of belonging to the "police family". "It is a sign of sympathy and solidarity for colleagues who were injured or killed on duty." But you use it "only very sparingly to prevent misunderstandings or misinterpretations".
