A dozen police officers patrol among the fruit trees on the banks of the Teltow Canal in southern Berlin. The allotment garden complex in the Lichterfelde district is covered in a thick layer of snow, the sun is low. At six o’clock in the morning on Saturday, a fire was set here under a cable bridge over the canal, which connects a power plant with a large part of the city. As a result of the fire, 45,000 households – around 100,000 citizens – were left without power. About 30,000 households are still without electricity and in the cold; According to the municipality, it will not take until Thursday afternoon at the earliest before everyone is connected to the power grid again. The sabotage action was claimed by the left-wing extremist “Vulkangruppe”.
In Lichterfelde, the Christmas lights in the front gardens are now back on. “We only had no power for 22 hours, which was manageable,” says a young man who rolls a check next to a gas station and does not want to give his name. In the districts of Zehlendorf-Steglitz, Nikolassee and Wannsee there is still no electricity, no heating and in many places no mobile coverage due to downed transmission towers.
Emergency workers on the streets of Zehlendorf during a power outage in the southern districts of Berlin, January 3.
Photo Odd ANDERSEN / AFP
In Zehlendorf, resident Hilmar quickly noticed on Saturday morning that something strange was going on. “I woke up because my television suddenly flared up,” says the man, who does not want his surname in the newspaper. “Afterwards it turned out to be the last convulsion of the power grid.” The consequences were felt quickly, he says. “My flat has three outside walls and one inside wall, so you can imagine what the temperature is like now.” The temperatures in Berlin these days do not rise above zero during the day either. It’s tough, says Hilmar: no heating, no hot water, no functioning stove. “I normally only eat sandwiches for breakfast, now three times a day. It’s just like the years after the war. I was born in 1941, and I remember well that life was not easy then.”
It’s just like the years after the war
Suaila, who also does not want to give her last name, has three small children and all three are very cold. She cannot cook, she is in Zehlendorf on her way to the other side of the tracks, where there is power again, to get food. A passerby who listens says that she still has electricity and that her adult daughter has moved in with her. At the Zehlendorf S-Bahn station there are employees of the “Technisches Hilfswerk” emergency service, where mainly older people come to find out where emergency shelters have been set up, where they can charge their phones or take a shower.
Vans with speakers
People can go to five locations in Berlin and neighboring Brandenburg. The municipality has requested help from the army, which provides emergency generators with diesel. The police drive through the streets in vans with loudspeakers to provide people with information. Light poles have been erected here and there to illuminate a square or intersection.
Emergency shelter from the German Red Cross during a major power outage in southwest Berlin on Sunday.
Photo FILIP SINGER / EPA
“We must speak of left-wing terrorism,” Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) said at a press conference at City Hall on Monday. According to Senator Iris Spranger (SPD), it concerns “violence against people and things, with the aim of intimidating parts of the population.”
The Vulkangruppe, which claimed responsibility for the attack in a letter to various media, was founded in 2011. “The name of the group is probably inspired by the outbreak of the Icelandic volcano [Eyjafjallajökull] in 2010, which shut down international air traffic for days,” said Felix Neumann, a terrorism expert at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, the CDU’s scientific bureau. According to him, the Volcano Group’s goal is to disrupt the international economic order.
A police officer stands guard on Saturday near the Lichterfelde cogeneration plant, responsible for the electricity supply and heating of southwest Berlin.
Photo FILIP SINGER / EPA
Previously, the group twice caused a fire at the power supply of the Tesla factory in Grünheide, Brandenburg (in 2021 and 2024), and caused power outages in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district in 2018. Little is known about who is behind the group and what exactly its motives are. It is clear that the Volcanic Group works very professionally, according to Neumann.
In the letter stating the group’s responsibility claims, it states that the Volcano Group “wants to emphasize against the destruction of the earth.” The group also states that it is not looking for power outages, but is focusing on the “fossil energy economy”. The group apologizes to the “less affluent people” who are the victims of their action.
Abstract targets
Neumann is brief about the success of the action: “This is not effective at all.” From an ecological point of view, the action does not make any difference, and the action will only alienate many Berliners from the abstract goals of the Volcano Group, according to Neumann. Yet internationally, Neumann sees an increase in the group’s type of disruptive actions. Train connections were sabotaged several times in Germany last year. Neumann sees a possible explanation for the increase in left-wing extremist actions, which is also reflected in figures from the security services, in the lack of effect that common forms of protest had in Germany, such as large demonstrations for sustainability.
Speculations are circulating online about possible Russian involvement. Neumann sees no connection, but states that Russia has an interest in what is happening now: “Russia wants to weaken European democracies. With such attacks on critical infrastructure, Russia can show that the German state cannot protect its citizens.”
Police Vice President Marco Langner dismisses the speculation for the time being: “We always investigate in all directions. But research into the letter from the Volcano Group does not indicate that it was forged.”
A pedestrian walks through a dark street in the Zehlendorf district of southwestern Berlin on Sunday during a large-scale power outage.
Photo FILIP SINGER / EPA
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