A local Meldestelle is not a small police station and not a hotline for emergencies. It is a documentation and referral desk. The distinction is not semantic. It determines what you build, what you promise, and what you must refuse. The Bundeskriminalamt describes civil-society reporting offices as partners that receive tips from the public, pre-assess reported content, and forward relevant tips to the Zentrale Meldestelle für strafbare Inhalte im Internet (ZMI). The same page states plainly that these offices “führen keine Ermittlungen durch” and “ersetzen weder Polizei noch Justiz” (BKA, ZMI). That is the model to copy at Landkreis, Bezirk, or canton level: structured intake, documented first assessment, named referral routes, no investigation.

The urgency is not rhetorical. It lies in the gap between what residents see — a sticker on a lamp post, a flyer in a school corridor, a Telegram group naming a local councillor — and what any institution currently records. A Meldestelle closes that gap by making incidents visible in aggregate and by routing the ones that need action to the actor who can take it. The design work happens before the first report arrives.

Step 1: Write the mandate in one paragraph

Before choosing a form tool, write down what the office is for. One paragraph, published on the same page as the intake form. It should name the incident types in scope and the ones explicitly out of scope.

In scope, typically: right-wing extremist stickers, flyers, graffiti, and symbols; racist, antisemitic, or otherwise group-targeted statements and threats online; announced or past extreme-right meetings and events; discrimination in local institutions where a right-wing motive is plausible. The Oldenburg reporting office run by ibis e.V. lists comparable categories and adds that reporters do not need to have filed a police report first (ibis e.V.).

Out of scope, explicitly: emergencies and situations requiring immediate police intervention. HessenGegenHetze, the Hessian state reporting office established on 16 January 2020 and located in the Hessen CyberCompetenceCenter of the Hessian Ministry of the Interior and Sport, tells reporters to call 110 or the local police station in such cases (HessenGegenHetze brochure, 2022). REspect! im Netz, run by the Jugendstiftung Baden-Württemberg, states that its form is not suitable for emergencies and that it is obliged to pass personal data to the police without prior consent if such a case is reported anyway (REspect! im Netz). Both examples point to the same design rule: the boundary must be visible before someone types.

Publish the mandate in the confirmation message as well. A reporter who has just submitted a case should read what the office can and cannot do: document, pre-assess against defined criteria, refer to a named route. Not investigate, not prosecute, not guarantee deletion of a post.

Step 2: Design the intake form around observable facts

Reporters are not lawyers. The form should ask for what they saw, not for the legal category it might fall under. The legal first assessment is the office’s job, and the BKA describes exactly that division: reporting offices “prüfen die gemeldeten Inhalte vor” and assess them “anhand definierter Kriterien” before forwarding.

A working civil-society form asks for: place and time of the incident; whether it happened online and on which platform; who it was directed against; a description of what was said, shown, or done; and optional file uploads. The ibis e.V. form in Oldenburg follows this structure, allows up to ten files, and lets reporters answer in a language they prefer rather than only German (ibis e.V.).

Three form-design decisions matter more than the rest:

• Contact details are optional and separated from the case description. ibis e.V. states that no personal data is required for a report and that contact details are used only for counseling or follow-up questions. The same page states that personal data provided will not be forwarded to authorities or third parties.
• “I don’t know” is a valid answer. A reporter who cannot name the street or the platform should still be able to submit. Build the form so that incomplete reports are accepted and flagged for follow-up rather than rejected.
• No legal categories in the dropdowns. Do not ask “Is this Volksverhetzung under § 130 StGB?” Ask what was said. The office’s triage step maps the description to a category, and that mapping is documented.

One channel is enough for the first version. A web form plus a monitored email address covers most cases. A phone line is useful but requires a trained person available at fixed hours; do not advertise a number you cannot staff.

Step 3: Data protection by design — anonymize at intake, not at publication

The most common design error is to treat anonymization as a step before publishing an annual report. By then the case record has already accumulated identifiers. Anonymize at intake instead: keep the reporter’s contact record in a separate store from the case record, linked only by a random case number that the intake person can resolve if the reporter asks for follow-up.

ibis e.V. describes its practice as anonymizing reports and then cataloguing the cases, with particular attention to preventing any inference about affected or reporting persons: “Die Sicherheit der Betroffenen hat Priorität” (ibis e.V.). That is the standard to write into your own procedure, not because it is legally mandated in that exact form, but because it is the documented practice of an operating civil-society office and it makes aggregate reporting possible without re-identification risk.

Write a short data-protection note covering five points and publish it next to the form:

1. Which data fields are collected and which are optional.
2. Where the data is stored and who has access.
3. That reporter contact data is not forwarded to authorities or third parties without a separate legal obligation — and name the exception, as REspect! does for cases requiring immediate police action.
4. How long case records are kept and when they are deleted. Set a concrete period and put it in writing; do not leave it to habit.
5. How a reporter can request deletion of their contact data.

The Datenschutzkonferenz, the body of the independent German data protection supervisory authorities of the federal and state governments, publishes official resolutions and guidance on its site (DSK). Before launch, send your draft data-protection note and retention rule to the supervisory authority responsible for your Land or to the data protection officer of the Träger organization. This is a procedural check, not a legal certification, and it is the step most likely to surface a problem while it is still cheap to fix.

Step 4: Triage — a documented first assessment, not a verdict

Triage is where a Meldestelle earns or loses its credibility. It must be consistent, written down, and separated from the decision about what happens next.

The Hessian workflow is a useful template because it names each stage: receipt of the report via form, email, or phone; documentation, review, and first assessment; forwarding to the relevant authority if relevant; notification of platform operators; referral to partners in the reporting network; and feedback to the reporter if contact details are available (HessenGegenHetze brochure, 2022).

For a local office without police powers, the triage categories should be narrower. A workable set:

• A — possible criminal relevance, refer. The BKA lists example categories of criminally relevant online content: public calls to violence or serious crimes, threats against persons or state institutions, incitement of the people and attacks on human dignity, and propaganda or support for extremist or terrorist aims. A local office does not decide whether a case meets a criminal threshold; it flags the case for referral to the competent authority and documents why.
• B — not criminal but documentable. Stickers, flyers, symbols, and statements that are relevant to local pattern analysis but do not meet the referral threshold. These are catalogued in aggregate.
• C — needs a different route. Discrimination cases that belong with an anti-discrimination counseling service, victim-support cases, or school-related incidents that belong with the school authority or a mobile counseling team.
• D — out of scope. Emergencies, cases requiring immediate police action, and reports about private disputes with no plausible right-wing or group-targeted dimension. Route D back to the reporter with a clear explanation and, where possible, a named alternative.

Two rules keep triage honest. First, the person who performs triage does not also decide on publication of case details. Second, every triage decision records the category, the reason in one or two sentences, and the referral route chosen. A monthly review reads a sample of these records. This is how a small office avoids drifting into either over-referral or quiet shelving.

Step 5: Build the referral list as a living document

The value of a local Meldestelle lies less in what it stores than in where it can send a case. A referral list with named contacts and a hand-off template is the core asset. Maintain it quarterly.

Typical routes, each with a named contact and a preferred hand-off method:

• State or federal reporting infrastructure for online content. The BKA names civil-society reporting offices as ZMI partners, alongside the Landesmedienanstalten and state justice initiatives. If your office handles online hate, clarify in writing whether and how it can forward to a ZMI partner; do not assume direct access.
• Mobile counseling against right-wing extremism. The Mobile Beratung gegen Rechtsextremismus in the Cologne administrative district, hosted at the NS-Dokumentationszentrum, advises on racist, antisemitic, or otherwise discriminatory statements, campaigns against refugees, right-wing graffiti and stickers, hate on social media, and extreme-right meetings. It states that all information is treated confidentially and that it develops tailored offers rather than standard formats (NS-DOK, MBR Köln). Identify the equivalent team for your Landkreis or Bezirk and put its contact in the list.
• Anti-discrimination counseling. The Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency offers a contact form for counseling and for documenting discrimination (ADS). Local and Land-level anti-discrimination offices are usually the better first route for cases where the affected person wants counseling rather than a criminal referral.
• Victim support and psychosocial counseling. For cases where the reporter or affected person needs support, the referral should happen in the same response as the documentation confirmation.
• Platform reporting. For online content, the platform’s own reporting channel is a separate route from any state referral. Document that the reporter was told about it; do not promise an outcome.

The hand-off template should be one page: case number, category, a factual summary without reporter identifiers, the referral destination, the date, and the response requested. It protects the affected person’s data and makes follow-up possible.

Step 6: Feedback and public reporting without re-identification

A Meldestelle that never reports back loses reporters. A Meldestelle that reports too much loses the people it documents. The balance is an annual anonymized report with aggregate categories and no case detail that could re-identify anyone.

ibis e.V. states that cases are made visible in annual reports only if the anonymity of affected and reporting persons is not endangered (ibis e.V.). Adopt that as a written rule: no location finer than the municipality, no date finer than the month, no description that combines a small place with a distinctive incident in a way that identifies the target.

Individual feedback is separate. If the reporter left contact details, send a short message when the case has been triaged and referred: the category, the route, and what the office will and will not do next. Do not promise an outcome you cannot control.

Step 7: A 30-day implementation checklist

The first version should be deliberately small. One intake channel, one trained person, one documented triage rule, one referral list. Expansion follows the first monthly review.

Days 1–5. Write the one-paragraph mandate, including in-scope and out-of-scope categories. Name the Träger organization and the person responsible for data protection.

Days 6–10. Draft the intake form around observable facts. Separate contact fields from case fields. Write the data-protection note and the retention rule.

Days 11–15. Send the draft to the responsible data protection supervisory authority or the Träger’s data protection officer. Build the referral list with named contacts and the one-page hand-off template.

Days 16–20. Write the triage rule: the four categories, the documentation fields, and the rule that the triage person does not decide on publication. Train the intake person on the form, the emergency exclusion, and the confirmation message.

Days 21–25. Test the form with two people who did not design it. Check that an incomplete report can be submitted, that the confirmation message states the limits, and that the emergency notice is visible before submission.

Days 26–30. Launch with one channel. Schedule the first monthly review: a sample of triage records, the referral list’s accuracy, and any reports that arrived through the wrong route. Publish the mandate and the data-protection note on the same page as the form.

What this model does not do

It does not investigate, prosecute, or decide on criminal relevance. It does not replace police or prosecutors, as the BKA states for civil-society reporting offices. It does not guarantee that a reported post is deleted or that a case leads to a proceeding. It does not accept every report; the out-of-scope category exists so that emergencies reach 110 and discrimination cases reach counseling.

What it does is make local patterns visible, route cases to the actor who can act, and protect the people who report. That is a modest mandate, and it is achievable within 30 days by a Landkreis, Bezirk, or canton actor with one trained person and a written procedure.

Local action

This week, before any form is built: identify the mobile counseling team or anti-discrimination office that covers your Landkreis, Bezirk, or canton, and ask one question in writing — which cases they can take directly from a local reporting office, and in what form. The answer determines your referral list, and the referral list determines whether the Meldestelle is worth setting up.