A German-Polish man was detained in Dortmund on suspicion of issuing calls for attacks on politicians and offering rewards for carrying them out, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Identified only as Martin S. under German privacy rules, the suspect is accused of publishing darknet guides on how to build explosives and soliciting cryptocurrency donations that were to be paid out as bounties for attacks.
Prosecutors say the platform also contained a list of politicians and public figures with names and personal details, accompanied by self-styled death sentences. They allege the calls for violence began at least in June.
According to reports from the DPA news agency and magazine Spiegel, the list included former chancellors Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz. Spiegel said investigators also found so-called “criminal files” and death sentences targeting judges and state prosecutors, alongside content described as right-wing extremist, racist, and tied to conspiracy theories.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters the material had appeared on “a right-wing extremist platform.” The man faces charges including financing terrorism, incitement to violence aimed at undermining the state, and dangerous disclosure of personal data. He is due before the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, which will rule on whether he should be held in custody pending trial.
Germany has seen a rise in attacks and threats against politicians in recent years, a trend critics link to a harsher political climate and a resurgence of far-right forces. In February, a DW film crew captured an attack on Green politician Yvonne Mosler in Dresden as she put up campaign posters, and Social Democrat Franziska Giffey was hospitalized after being struck by a man in a Berlin library. The 2019 murder of Christian Democrat state politician Walter Lübcke by a neo-Nazi remains a stark example of the threat.
More to follow.
