The task of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is to enable the responsible authorities to take the necessary measures in good time to avert threats to the free democratic basic order, the existence and security of the Federation and the states.
[14] At the end of the 1990s, the State Office spent considerable money on numerous undercover agents in the right-wing extremist scene (see also the costly but ineffective "Operation Rennsteig").
By 2001, the State Office had received a total of 47 source references to the NSU trio, most of which were provided by Brandt, but it cannot be proven whether any of the informants had knowledge of the crimes or even of their whereabouts.
In 2018, NSU expert Tanjev Schultz judged that the State Office had made poor use of its many informants in the right-wing scene; things had gone "haywire" in the agency.
Technical supervision by the Ministry of the Interior was practically eliminated for years, as Roewer insisted on reporting exclusively to Köckert's predecessor, Richard Dewes (SPD), without the responsible supervisory department being informed of the content of the discussions.
The report initially remained classified, but Roewer was suspended in the same year due to an embezzlement scandal involving the front company Heron-Verlag.
In March 2012, several extensive house searches were carried out on former informants of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution on the grounds of commercial gang fraud; Brandt is among the accused.