The Munich police are investigating the suspicion that left-wing extremists were responsible for the massive power outage in the east of the state capital on Friday and Saturday, but they still have no concrete lead.

From early Friday morning until Saturday, 20,000 households in the east of Munich were at least temporarily without electricity.

Timo Frasch

Political correspondent in Munich.

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    On Sunday, a letter of confession was uploaded to the left-wing radical platform Indymedia, in which the anonymous authors stated that they had “attacked the electricity and fiber optic network of the municipal utilities in the east of Munich”.

    The main objective of the campaign was "the defense company Rhode & Schwarz at Munich's Ostbahnhof" - in fact, the company was written as "Rohde & Schwarz".

    State security assumes arson

    It is an electronics company that also supplies the state with electronic measurement and telecommunications technology. This is used, for example, in air traffic control, defense and cybersecurity. The company headquarters of "Rohde & Schwarz" is located in the factory district affected by the power failure. With the attack it was "happily" succeeded in "turning the juice off" for 24 hours, according to the letter.

    The investigating state security, which is still checking the authenticity of the letter of confession, is assuming arson. Around 50 medium-voltage power cables were completely destroyed in the fire in an excavation pit early on Friday morning. As a result, around 150 transformer stations failed. The fire brigade set up an emergency power supply for people who urgently need a power supply for medical reasons, for example.

    According to the alleged letter of confession, the attack is also said to have been a reaction to the planned clearing of the Kasten forest. The social committee of the Munich city council decided in a closed session on Thursday that part of the forest may be cut down and used for gravel extraction. In the letter of the alleged perpetrators it is said: “It is our answer to the pathetic city council decision to cut down the forest box in order to extract gravel there. Stadtwerke München continues to operate a coal-fired power plant in Bogenhausen and the Isar 2 nuclear power plant. That is why we will continue to attack their infrastructure in the future. "

    Since the end of 2019 there have been several arson attacks on radio masts and other infrastructure facilities in Munich, with property damage amounting to millions. The investigative authorities also suspected the perpetrators to be in the left-wing extremist spectrum, but without being able to locate people. In the Bavarian Constitutional Protection Report 2020 it says: “For some time now, there has been a disinhibition in committing left-wing extremist crimes.” Unlike in the past, “within the scene there is almost no discussion about the communicability of acts of violence”.