Germany offers €1 million reward to help catch far-left extremists behind Berlin’s biggest post-war blackout

The German government unveiled a raft of measures to tackle left-wing militancy on Tuesday, including data collection and storage

Germany is offering a huge reward for help catching the group behind an attack that left swathes of Berlin in total darkness earlier this month.

Some 50,000 people in Berlin’s wealthy southwest were left without power for several days in early January, following an act of suspected sabotage claimed by the far-left extremist Vulkan Group.

Berlin's Mayor Kai Wegner was quick to condemn the attack on high voltage power lines as “terrorism” as the group claimed responsibility in a lengthy, politically-charged letter titled “cutting off power to those in power”.

Iris Spranger, the senator for interior affairs in the capital, confirmed on Monday that federal prosecutors are now offering a €1 million (£870,000) reward for information that leads to arrests.

The blackout in Berlin caused chaos across the capital in January (Reuters)

"This is a one-off case,” she told lawmakers during a session of the Berlin State Parliament’s Interior Committee. “I cannot recall the federal government ever offering a reward of this magnitude under similar circumstances.”

She said the government considered it an exceptional measure, but an appropriate amount for the crime. The outage, which started on 3 January and only ended four days later, was the longest in the German capital since the Second World War.

It was caused by a fire that destroyed a cable duct running over a canal, cutting off power to around 45,000 households and across 2,000 businesses in southwestern districts of the city as bitter winter temperatures set in.

Germany was forced to bring in the army to support residents as the blackout cut off heating, trains and mobile phone connections.

Power was cut off to tens of thousand of households (Reuters)

The Vulkan Group, which is listed by Berlin’s intelligence services as a left-wing extremist organisation, said in their letter, published online: “The aim of the action is to cause significant damage to the gas industry and the greed for energy.”

They have taken responsibility for similar actions in the past but no arrests have been made over the blackout as yet.

Germany’s interior minister insisted on Tuesday that the government would step up efforts to tackle left-wing militants.

“Our security agencies will be significantly reinforced in the fight against left-wing extremism,” the minister, Alexander Dobrindt, said.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency will devote more staff to left-wing militancy, Dobrindt said, adding that new legislation is being prepared to expand the digital investigative powers of security authorities.

The measures would cover automated data analysis, biometric facial recognition and the storage of IP addresses.

A fire destroyed high-voltage power cables running across a bridge in Berlin, causing a major outage that was promptly claimed by the Vulkan Group (Stromnetz Berlin)

Franziska Giffey, a politician with the Social Democratic Party, told POLITICO that investigators would have to have to look into whether their motivation went beyond political ideology.

“The question is, are these just left-wing activist groups acting on behalf of ideology, or is there more to it than that? That absolutely must be investigated,” she said.

Vulkan Group also claimed an attack on a power pylon near the Tesla factory outside Berlin, in 2024.