Following a suspected arson attack on high-voltage power poles that left 50,000 people without electricity in Berlin last September, investigators launched raids across the country on Tuesday morning.
Eighteen searches were carried out nationwide targeting “suspects whose names are known,” a spokesperson for the Berlin State Prosecutor’s Office told AFP. “Today’s searches show that we pursue every lead with the highest priority,” Berlin’s interior senator Iris Spranger said. “Anyone who attacks our critical infrastructure attacks the security of our entire city. We will not accept that.”
In September 2025 unknown perpetrators destroyed high-voltage cables supplying power to the Adlershof Technology Park in the Johannisthal area of southeast Berlin. A letter claiming responsibility circulated in left-wing circles, and investigators suspect extremists were involved. Some 50,000 customers of the state-owned Stromnetz operator lost power, including businesses; damage to companies was later estimated at between €30 million and €70 million. Care facilities were also affected and five residents from two nursing homes were temporarily moved to hospitals.
Six months on, police searched apartments and other premises in multiple locations across Berlin and in three other federal states, based on information obtained by dpa. Around 500 officers were reportedly deployed, with many stationed outside buildings connected to the left-wing scene. Officers were seen seizing laptops, and a far-left anarchist library in Kreuzberg was among the locations targeted.
The German police union said the security authorities “know who the key figures in the hard-line faction are,” but added it “remains incredibly difficult to prove that they carried out arson attacks like the ones in Johannisthal or Zehlendorf.”
In a separate incident in January, an attack claimed by the far-left “Vulkangruppe” (Volcano Group) cut power to about 45,000 Berlin homes for nearly a week during an unusually harsh winter; prosecutors opened a terror probe into that blackout.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery