"Not the right way": Green Youth leader Jette Nietzard regrets anti-police action

Green Youth leader Jette Nietzard provoked criticism on Instagram with a sweater bearing the slogan "ACAB." The outrage was widespread across party lines. She also received strong backlash from the Greens. Initially, she invoked freedom of expression and is now backpedaling – partially.

The chairwoman of the Green Youth, Jette Nietzard, regrets an Instagram post in which she wears a sweater with the abbreviation "ACAB" ("all cops are bastards"). "I don't think that was the right way to draw attention to the problems," she said in the "Stern" podcast "5-Minuten-Talk." "I own this sweater as a private individual, and I posted an Instagram story as a private individual. Perhaps I should have been aware that I, as the spokesperson for the Green Youth, would attract attention with it." She said she didn't intend to initiate a debate. "Now we have it. But I don't think it was the right way."

In an Instagram story, Nietzard wore a cap with the words "Eat the rich" and a sweatshirt with the letters "ACAB." The slogan "Eat the rich" is used in left-wing, anti-capitalist circles and criticizes social inequality and the power of the rich. The acronym "ACAB" stands for "All Cops Are Bastards" and is used in police-critical circles, including in left-wing and far-left circles.

Her post sparked massive criticism over the weekend. The Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag also distanced itself from Nietzard . "Such provocative individual statements do not reflect the position of our parliamentary group and the party," Marcel Emmerich, domestic policy spokesperson for the Green parliamentary group, told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). "The police act daily with great responsibility and commitment to ensure our security and freedom are guaranteed – under extremely difficult conditions in a tense security situation with numerous security threats." For this, they deserve respect and support, not blanket disparagement.

Konstantin von Notz, deputy parliamentary group leader of the Green Party in the Bundestag, wrote on X: "'All cops are bastards' is a completely subterranean, unacceptable, and insulting take on all police officers who – often poorly paid – work every day for our constitutional state, our security, and our freedom." Party leader Franziska Brantner shared the post on her profile. A spokesperson for the Green Party's federal executive board told Bild: "Obviously, this has nothing to do with Green politics; our platform is well known."

Nietzard hates "the system behind it"

Nietzard maintains her harsh criticism of the police. "Of course, I don't hate the police as a whole, but what I hate is the system behind it and how it's currently structured." There are no proper police studies, no structural analysis of violence, and racist tendencies, which the police fail to make transparent enough.

The head of the youth organization also criticized the Green Party leadership in the podcast. Nietzard said they are "often not direct enough." "I would also like the Greens to focus more on the police and the structural issues that go with it, especially after Lorenz's death, for example. And I hope that the parliamentary group in the Bundestag can do more of this again after moving into opposition."

Nietzard had asked the following question on Instagram about the photo: "On the way to the Bundestag. What does Julia Klöckner find worse: ACAB sweater - eat the rich cap?" She may have been referring to an expulsion from the Bundestag by the Bundestag Presidium in mid-May. The Bundestag President had ordered Left Party MP Marcel Bauer to remove his beret. Because he failed to comply, Bauer was later expelled from the chamber by Parliament's Vice President and Chair Andrea Lindholz.

Lindholz: "That's not possible"

Lindholz addressed the Green Youth on X. She wrote about the statement to the police. "That's completely unacceptable," she said. "Because they ensure our security 24/7, 365 days a year." Behaving like that in the Bundestag demonstrates a double "no respect." AfD MP Kay Gottschalk asked on X whether the incident was a case for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The federal chairman of the police union, Jochen Kopelke, called Nietzard's posting in "Bild" "quite pathetic." "With this adolescent hatred of the police and irrelevant statements, the Green Youth clearly wants to generate clicks."

Instagram stories are typically only visible for 24 hours. However, the widely criticized image continues to be shared on social media. The hashtag #jette was trending on Instagram in Germany.

Nietzard has already attracted controversy with social media posts in the past. Earlier this year, she apologized for a post about male violence against women, in which she wrote that men who lose their hands while setting off fireworks are at least no longer able to hit women.