Tens of thousands of households and businesses in Berlin were affected by the days-long power outage after high-voltage cables were deliberately set on fire in the southwestern district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf on Saturday, January 3rd. Around 45,000 households and 2,200 businesses lost electricity, forcing schools and hospitals to close.
The outage was claimed online by a criminal enterprise group calling itself the Vulkangruppe (‘Volcano Group’), identified by authorities as a known left-wing extremist organisation. Interior officials described the incident as an act of left-wing terrorism and considered the claim credible.
Power was fully restored by the afternoon of Wednesday, January 7th, according to Berlin’s senator for economic affairs, Franziska Giffey.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) commented on the incident for the first time 127 hours after the blackout began, during a press event at the CSU conference in Seeon. In his statement, Merz referred to the event as an “attack” and praised the crisis management by local authorities, including the deployment of the Bundeswehr and other emergency services. “It is excellent work,” he stated
There is nothing to criticize in the process. We probably couldn’t have done much better than it was done that way.
Merz avoided using the terms “left-wing extremism” or “terrorism” explicitly, despite ongoing investigations by the Federal Attorney General into the politically motivated nature of the attack. The Chancellor noted that Germany cannot fully protect its infrastructure but said the country needs redundancies built in to support critical infrastructure. He added that a detailed review would be conducted to analyze what can be done better if a similar incident occurs in the future.
