Hundreds of police officers have raided nineteen sites connected with the hard-left scene throughout Germany in the early morning hours of March 24 to search for evidence against left-wingers suspected of sabotage against Berlin’s electrical network.
As the Berlin police and prosecutor’s office announced in a joint statement, about 500 policemen descended on several apartments and other locations in Berlin, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Brandenburg.
According to media reports, the raided objects include a well-known “anarchist library” in Berlin. The Anarchist Library Kalabal!k describes itself as “a tool to disseminate anarchist ideas and attack the ruling social order that surrounds us”.
The investigations centred on four individuals between 28 and 36 years of age. They are accused of conducting an arson attack against two electricity poles in Berlin on September 9, 2025.
The fire caused a large-scale power outage in Eastern Berlin, affecting 50,000 private households and 2,000 companies. A speaker for the Berlin business development agency Wista said at the time the damage amounted to €30 to €70 million.
Shortly afterwards, a letter claiming responsibility for the attack was published on Indymedia, an online forum used as a mouthpiece by German Antifa and other hard-left groups.
The police said they managed to secure a wide array of potential evidence, including mobile phones, laptops, and documents.
Germany has a long-standing problem with attacks on its critical infrastructure. In the past years unknown assailants have sabotaged high-speed rail lines, power lines, and similar installations.
In January 2026, an attack on a high-voltage line in Berlin left more than 100,000 Berliners without electricity for several days in subzero temperatures.
In most of these cases the perpetrators are believed to hail from Germany’s well-entrenched hard-left scene. Often the attacks are followed by claims of responsibility on Indymedia and similar sites.
The German authorities appear powerless in light of the attacks, and have in the past often been unable to arrest the perpetrators.
The German police officers’ union GdP said on March 24: “The security authorities know who the key figures are. But it remains incredibly difficult to prove that the are behind the arson attacks.”
GdP spokesman Benjamin Jendro added: “Left-wing extremism is a cancerous tumour that threatens democracy, eating away at our society and, sadly, repeatedly finding fertile ground in the political arena. The dangers posed by left-wing extremists have been downplayed in Germany for years.”
