A fire that cut electricity to large parts of southwest Berlin and left tens of thousands of residents without power was likely caused by a far-left extremist attack, German officials said on Sunday, raising concerns about politically motivated sabotage of critical infrastructure.
Grid operator Stromnetz Berlin said the suspected arson attack could leave up to 45,000 households without electricity until January 8. By Sunday, restoration efforts were still under way, with around 35,000 households and 1,900 commercial customers continuing to experience outages.
The incident took on a political dimension after local media published a letter purportedly from a far-left extremist group calling itself the Volcano Group, which claimed responsibility for the fire. The group said the attack was aimed at the fossil fuel-based energy industry. Berlin’s interior affairs minister, Iris Spranger, said security authorities had classified the letter as authentic and confirmed that investigators were treating the case as extremist-motivated arson.
“I condemn this inhumane attack on Berliners and visitors to the city in the strongest possible terms,” Spranger said, adding that the investigation was ongoing. Authorities have not yet released details on suspects or arrests.
The suspected attack echoes a similar incident in September, when arson damage to two electricity pylons left around 50,000 Berlin households without power. Local media said that case bore similarities to the Volcano Group’s high-profile sabotage of the power supply to Tesla’s gigafactory in Gruenheide in 2024, an action that had also been claimed by the group and justified on ideological grounds.
The latest outage has renewed debate in Germany over the vulnerability of energy infrastructure and the growing threat posed by extremist groups willing to disrupt civilian life to advance political causes.
