Germany arrests far-right teenagers over asylum-seeker attacks

BERLIN (AFP) — German police on Wednesday arrested five teenagers accused of forming a far-right militant group called the “Last Wave of Defense” that targeted asylum-seekers and plotted to undermine the government.

The suspects, reportedly aged 14 to 18, were members or supporters of the “right-wing extremist terrorist organization” founded in April last year, federal prosecutors said.

Their goal was “to bring about the collapse of the democratic system in the Federal Republic of Germany through acts of violence,” the prosecutors’ office said in a statement.

The juveniles saw themselves as defenders of the “German nation” and had allegedly planned “arson and bomb attacks on asylum-seekers’ homes and institutions on the political left.”

Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig said it was “particularly shocking” that the suspects arrested were all “minors when the terrorist group was founded.”

“This is a warning sign and shows that right-wing extremist terrorism knows no age,” Hubig said.

Police launched raids on 13 properties nationwide and arrested four alleged group members and one supporter. All had been minors over the age of criminal responsibility at the time of most of the crimes, prosecutors said.

Two of the suspects, identified as Jerome M. and Lenny M., were also accused of attempted murder and arson, prosecutors said.

Arson attack

The pair allegedly set fire to a cultural center in the town of Altdoebern in the eastern region of Brandenburg in October.

At the time, the building was occupied by several people, who escaped unscathed, prosecutors said.

The center was thought to have been targeted because it was seen as left-wing and its management had spoken out against right-wing extremism in the past, Die Welt daily reported.

A third member of the group, named as Ben-Maxim H., drafted a speech which was read by Lenny M. in a video inciting others to carry out similar attacks.

The police raids Wednesday also targeted properties linked to three other alleged group members who were already in custody.

Two of those previously arrested allegedly smashed a window of an asylum-seekers’ shelter and hurled fireworks inside, but without sparking a fire, in Schmoelln in the eastern region of Thuringia in January.

They also sprayed the building with Swastikas and slogans including “Foreigners Out,” “Germany for the Germans” and “Nazi Territory,” and made Nazi salutes outside the building.

‘Radicalization’

Three group members had jointly planned to attack another asylum shelter in January and had procured two firework “bombs” to carry out the attack, prosecutors said.

Previous arrests made by police however meant the supposed attack plan was never carried out.

Far-right extremism among young people is a “phenomenon that has been with us for some time now,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told journalists Wednesday.

“We are talking about a small area, but one that can become very radical,” Dobrindt said.

The far-right activists were “highly networked” across the country with the first contact between activists usually made online, Dobrindt said.

Germany has been on alert after a rise in politically motivated crimes, with the threat of far-right extremism growing in particular.

Officials on Tuesday reported a 40% surge last year in such offenses, which range from hate speech to acts of physical violence.

In total, a record 84,172 politically motivated crimes were recorded in 2024, almost half of them motivated by a far-right ideology.

Presenting the report, federal criminal police chief Holger Muench said the rise reflected increased “polarization and radicalization in society” and showed that Germany’s “democracy is under pressure.”

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By SEBASTIEN ASH Agence France-Presse