In what Der Spiegel magazine described as “the biggest blow to the neo-Nazi militant scene in the recent past”, the federal prosecutor’s office said more than 1,000 police officers raided the homes of 50 suspects in 11 states. “The four men arrested are charged with involvement in a right-wing extremist criminal organization,” she said in a statement, adding that some had also been charged with other offenses, including grievous bodily harm. Spiegel reported that one of the suspects was a non-commissioned officer in the German armed forces. The suspects, who were targeted Wednesday, are believed to belong to the far-right Knockout 51 martial arts group, the banned Combat 18, named after Adolf Hitler’s initials, the US-based Atomwaffen Division or the Internet propaganda group Sonderkommando 1418.. Germany’s center-left government under Chancellor Olaf Solz took office in December pledging a decisive battle against far-right fighters after criticism that the previous government was lax in its neo-Nazi violence. Nancy Pfizer, Germany’s first female interior minister, said when she was appointed that her top priority would be tackling “the country’s biggest threat: right-wing extremism” following a series of deadly far-right attacks. “Our significantly intensified efforts against violent right-wing extremists are bearing fruit,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “Today’s measures show once again that illegal groups can be a powerful sword in defending our basic democratic order.” Three of the men were arrested in the eastern city of Eisenach. The fourth was received in Rotenburg an der Fulda in central Germany. The three men arrested in Eisenach are believed to be leading figures in Knockout 51, which prosecutors say “lures young, nationalist men, catechizes them with far-right propaganda and trains them for street fighting.” Knockout 51 is believed to have links to other far-right groups across Germany and “as of March 2020 at the latest, has focused on committing serious crimes”. These include attacks on left-wing activists, the police and “other people who, according to the group’s right-wing extremist and racist worldview, can be fought.” He said Knockout 51 tried to create a “Nazi neighborhood” under its control in Eisenach and last year began “patrols” in which they tried to provoke the victims to fight them. Prosecutors said the suspects injured several people, some of them seriously, in such clashes. The group is also accused of taking part in anti-government protests against the coronavirus between August 2020 and March 2021, with the aim of provoking clashes with police and protesters. Prosecutors say 10 of the suspects targeted on Wednesday were charged with links to the “terrorist organization” Atomwaffen Division Deutschland. The German arm of a “racist, anti-Semitic and National Socialist” militant group formed in the United States in 2015 “aims to unleash a ‘tribal war’ in which the ‘white population’ will emerge victorious.” He said the group had tried to recruit young Germans to universities in Berlin and Frankfurt with leaflets and Internet propaganda. The Sonderkommando 1418 has mainly functioned as an online chat group to attract supporters for the establishment of a “neo-fascist system”. Federal prosecutors reported this week a breakthrough in the investigation into a deadly 30-year arson attack on an asylum shelter with the arrest of a far-right suspect in the western city of Saarlouis.
