The beginning of 2026 was marked in Germany by a serious attack on the country’s power grid, affecting hundreds of thousands of people in Berlin during the cold early days of January, followed by another attack that got less attention, just outside of Düsseldorf in the village of Erkrath. Both attacks were acts of arson claimed by “left-wing” groups.
In the early morning hours of January 3rd, electrical distribution cables crossing a bridge over the Teltow Canal leading to the gas-fired Lichterfelde power plant were seen in flames. What was soon determined to be an act of arson disrupted power to some 45,000 homes and 2,200 businesses across southwest Berlin—including hospitals and other critical infrastructure—according to German and Western news outlets. For many, the power took up to five days to be restored. The attack was claimed by a known militant eco-activist group, Vulkangruppe—or “Volcano Group”. They denied that so many people would be affected when they released their claim the following day. Major news outlets further report that the effects of the outage included burglaries, train stoppages, and heating outages.
Vulkangruppe has been active since circa 2011 and has a notable resume of similar non-lethal sabotage actions, mainly arson attacks, targeting infrastructure, Big Tech, industrialists, and other perceived enemies of the earth and the environment. In 2024, they attacked an electricity pylon using an improvised incendiary device (IID), shutting down a Berlin-area Tesla auto factory for several days.
It is important, in this article, to examine sections of the claim that was released on an anti-authoritarian website the morning after the direct action. The header for the claim, which was repeated, reads “Shutting down fossil fuel power plants is manual labor. Courage. Militant New Year’s wishes.” It then begins:
We can stop the overexploitation of the earth. The earth is exhausted, depleted, burned, mistreated, set on fire, violated, destroyed by the greed of energy […] We know that we must stop this destruction […] Tonight, we successfully sabotaged the gas power plant in the Berlin district of Lichterfelde. There were power outages in the wealthy districts of Wannsee, Zehlendorf, and Nikolassee. The goal of the action was not the power outages, but the fossil fuel sector. We apologize to the less wealthy people in southwestern Berlin. For the many villa owners in these districts, our compassion is limited […] The attack on the gas power plant is an act of self-defense and international solidarity with all those who protect the earth and life. Infrastructures that serve the ‘technological attack’ and promote the destruction of the earth can be sabotaged. Fossil fuel energy production can be stopped. Smart cities, which is what Berlin is supposed to become, can be avoided […] For us, it is clear that we have at all times ruled out any risk of endangering human lives…
