Berlin’s mayor is calling for an arson attack after a major power outage puts people’s lives at risk

Berlin – An incident of vandalism by an extremist group has left tens of thousands of residents in the German capital without electricity for several days in the winter. Saturday morning’s attack on critical electrical infrastructure in southwest Berlin knocked out power to nearly 50,000 homes and businesses, and renewed a long-running campaign of destruction by the leftist “Vulkangruppe.”

The group says it is to blame for the fire, which destroyed large power lines near the Lichterfelde heating station and power station and caused the worst blackout the capital has experienced in years.

According to Stromnetz Berlin, which operates the Berlin electricity network, power has been cut to up to 45,000 homes and more than 2,000 businesses in four districts south of Berlin.

The power outage also meant many homes lost heating and hot water as temperatures plunged below freezing in Berlin.

While engineers restored power to parts of the network on Monday, about 30,000 homes were still without internet connection as technicians struggled to install damaged underground cables buried in frozen ground. The power company said it did not expect power to be fully restored until Thursday.

In a lengthy statement circulated online and deemed credible by police, the Vulkangruppe said it deliberately targeted wealthy areas, to “cut the juice to the ruling class.”

The group planned the attack as an act of protest against fossil fuel consumption and growth the energy demand created by AI data centerswhich they say has accelerated climate change and increased human observation. This statement includes an apology to the wealthy residents who were affected by the power outage but expressed sympathy for the wealthy homeowners who were left without electricity.

The impact of this attack quickly spread beyond the areas the group had intended to target. Hospitals, nursing homes and high-rise residents who rely on elevators have been affected. Mobile phone networks failed in some regions and passenger train services were disrupted. Police used car-mounted loudspeakers to alert residents, and some schools delayed opening after the Christmas and New Year break.

Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, condemned the arson attack as an “unacceptable act of terrorism. He warned that attacks on electrical infrastructure put people’s lives at risk and put a heavy burden on the city’s emergency services.”

“These are not children’s pranks, but professional criminals who attacked these power lines,” Wegner said in an interview on Monday with German public broadcaster RBB. “This is not just arson or vandalism. This is already terrorism. It was a group of left-wing extremists who attacked our infrastructure, and in doing so, they endangered the lives of people, elderly people who may need ventilators, families with small children, and now we have to arrest these perpetrators.”

Franziska Giffey, Berlin’s state senator for Economic Affairs, Energy, and Public Enterprises, called on the federal government to assist in a criminal investigation into the actions of the extremist group, calling it an attack on “our free society.”

“It must be about the government’s assistance in the investigation,” he said. “The question is whether these are left-wing activist groups that operate because of ideology, or whether there is something else behind that.”

Security officials say the arson is consistent with a pattern that has been going on for more than a decade. According to an investigation by Berlin authorities and Germany’s domestic intelligence service, groups using the name Vulkangruppe or closely related labels have been responsible for a series of attacks on electrical, railway and telecommunications infrastructure since 2011.

Early incidents included the burning of railway and electricity cables in Berlin which disrupted passenger traffic and caused extensive damage. In 2018, fires set on power lines knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses in the capital, and later attacks targeted research and telecommunications facilities connected to the digital infrastructure.

The group has gained more attention in recent years for increasingly high-profile acts. In March 2024, it claimed responsibility for an attack on a voltage pylon that temporarily supplies electricity to the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg. to stop production at the factory.

In September, another power cable arson attack in southeast Berlin caused a 60-hour blackout affecting tens of thousands of residents, reportedly the longest blackout in the city since World War II. A similar group of fanatics was widely mentioned, although not explicitly claimed by the Vulkangruppe.

Authorities warn that such an attack requires little expert knowledge but can have dramatic and far-reaching consequences, posing a risk to the city’s highly interconnected infrastructure.

The recent outages have reinforced calls for stronger protection of power grids and emergency emergency response systems for such incidents.