The full extent of the German military's problems with Nazi sympathizers among its ranks may slowly be coming to light.

In a year plagued by scandal, Germanys' Funke Media Group revealed on Friday that the Bundeswehr's Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) recorded 286 new cases of right-wing extremism in 2017.

Read more: The German military and its troubled traditions

The counterintelligence agency had ongoing probes into 275 cases at the beginning of the year, the Funke group of local media outlets reported.

Watch video 02:12 Findings on right-wing extremism in Germany's military – DW's Naomi Conrad

Funke's media outlets cited the Defense Ministry's response to a parliamentary inquiry in their reports. Neither the ministry nor the Bundeswehr has yet issued a response.

A handful of cases have already been reported in the press this year, including that of Franco A. The army lieutenant was exposed in April for leading a double life as a Syrian refugee and planning a terrorist attack. His plan was to use a fake identity to raise suspicion about migrants in Germany. He and another soldier, identified as Maximilian T., were arrested for planning "grave act of violence against the state." Franco A.'s Master's thesis was reported to have included obvious far-right ideology.

Just a few week's later, investigators uncovered Nazi memorabilia in troop barracks in Donaueschingen, including helmets from the Wehrmacht — the German military under Hitler.

The Bundeswehr was founded in 1955, and many former Wehrmacht soldiers began serving in the new German army.

Read more: Germany promises army reforms after neo-Nazi terror plot

Ulla Jelpke, a domestic policy spokeswoman of the Left Party, denounced the military's dealing with extremists, told the Funke group, "There can be no pardon for neo-Nazis and Reichsbürger — they ultimately have to be expelled from the military ranks."

Reichsbürger refers to a collection of far-right, nationalist, and often anti-Semitic groups whose main characteristic is the conspiratorial belief that the Federal Republic of Germany does not legally exist because, Reichsbürger maintain, Germany never signed a peace treaty with the Allies following World War II.

Read more: What draws right-wing extremists to the military?

"Armed right-wing extremists are "ticking time bombs," Jelpke said. "Even on reasonable suspicion, the persons concerned should no longer have access to weapons until the allegations have been clarified."

Last month, prosecutors in the German city of Tübingen revealed that they are investigating allegations of right-wing extremist behavior among Germany's Special Force Commando, the nation's elite military troops.

Germany's NATO missions Germany's role in NATO West Germany officially joined the trans-Atlantic alliance in 1955. However, it wasn't until after reunification in 1990 that the German government considered "out of area" missions led by NATO. From peacekeeping to deterrence, Germany's Bundeswehr has since been deployed in several countries across the globe in defense of its allies.

Germany's NATO missions Bosnia: Germany's first NATO mission In 1995, Germany participated in its first "out of area" NATO mission as part of a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the deployment, German soldiers joined other NATO member forces to provide security in the wake of the Bosnian War. The peacekeeping mission included more than 60,000 troops from NATO's member states and partners.

Germany's NATO missions Keeping the peace in Kosovo Since the beginning of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, some 8,500 German soldiers have been deployed in the young country. In 1999, NATO launched an air assault against Serbian forces accused of carrying out a brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists and their civilian supporters. Approximately 550 Bundeswehr troops are still stationed in Kosovo.

Germany's NATO missions Patrolling the Aegean Sea In 2016, Germany deployed its combat support ship "Bonn" to lead a NATO mission backed by the EU in the Aegean Sea. The mission included conducting "reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance of illegal crossings" in Greek and Turkish territorial waters at the height of the migration crisis. Germany, Greece and Turkey had requested assistance from the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Germany's NATO missions More than a decade in Afghanistan In 2003, Germany's parliament voted to send Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Germany became the third-largest contributor of troops and led the Regional Command North. More than 50 German troops were killed during the mission. Nearly a thousand soldiers are still deployed in Afghanistan as part of Resolute Support.

Germany's NATO missions German tanks in Lithuania Forming part of NATO's "enhanced forward presence" in the Baltic states, 450 Bundeswehr soldiers have been deployed to Lithuania so far in 2017. The battalion-size battlegroups there are led by Germany, Canada, the UK and US to reinforce collective defense on the alliance's eastern flank. It forms the "biggest reinforcement of Alliance collective defence in a generation," according to NATO.

Germany's NATO missions Taking over the leadership The Bundeswehr is due to take over leadership of NATO's multinational Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) at the start of 2019. The rapid reaction force has been set up to counter potential Russian aggression on the alliance's eastern flank. Author: Lewis Sanders IV



dm/sms (dpa, AFP)