Promotion of democracy, prevention of extremism and contact person for suspected radicalization

At the introductory event for new employees of the City of Offenbach, they get to know all the offices and companies of the City of Offenbach as well as the DEXT office. Firstly, so that employees know who they can turn to if they are confronted with extremism in any form. On the other hand, the city administration also positions itself in favor of tolerance and against extremism and would like to clarify its expectations regarding the attitude of employees.

In addition, the city administration's training program includes an event run by the DEXT specialist unit. Participants learn how to recognize extremist politically or religiously motivated propaganda on social media. In the workshop, the approach of extremists is critically examined and discussed.

All new trainees at the city administration go through an induction week. Since 2022, the DEXT department has implemented a Creative Change module to raise trainees' awareness of the issues of prejudice, discrimination and extremism right from the start. Since 2023, there has also been a full-day workshop for new trainees once a year to sensitize them to the propaganda of radical actors on social media.

In addition, the DEXT specialist unit provides advice to all offices and conducts workshops tailored to the needs of the offices. So far, these have included MainArbeit and the Immigration Office. There is already a workshop concept for the Youth Welfare Office, which is to be implemented in 2023.

Symposium "Opportunities and risks of a party ban", 18.11.2025
The symposium served to identify all opportunities, challenges and consequences for which the prevention of extremism must be prepared in the run-up to a decision to ban a party.

Symposium "Parallels and specifics of right-wing extremism & Islamism", 19.10.2022
The aim of the symposium was to analyze whether and what parallels and specifics there are in politically and religiously motivated extremist phenomena and what this means for prevention work. The target group was organizations from the field of prevention work.

Pilot project on prevention in schools
A pilot project on the prevention of extremism was implemented at the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule until 31.12.2022. At the end of the project, recommendations for action were drawn up, including a method kit. These serve as a guide for schools that want to implement extremism prevention. It contains recommendations for structural changes at schools that are necessary in order to integrate the prevention of extremism into everyday school life. In addition, projects and organizations are recommended to work on the topic in schools. The recommendations for action and the method kit will be made available online on an online platform for teachers in the future. The DEXT specialist unit will advertise this at schools in the city of Offenbach.

In cooperation with the Red Line and the Violence Prevention Network, the DEXT office is also developing an additional action guide for teachers, which recommends steps to take if a pupil is observed to have tendencies towards radicalization.

Networking
The DEXT specialist unit has strengthened its networking with "Achtsegel" in order to always be up to date with regard to right-wing extremist developments through the monitoring of "Achtsegel" and to be able to align the work of the DEXT specialist unit accordingly.

The City of Offenbach is also working on cooperation with all mosque communities to prevent extremism together.