It was a concerted action, the likes of which have never been seen before.

With over 1,000 police forces, the federal prosecutor's office had 61 premises searched throughout Germany from early Wednesday morning.

Not even after the terror group "National Socialist Underground" (NSU) was blown up in November 2011, according to FAZ information, were there as many officials on duty as now.

Never before, however, have proceedings been directed against so many people at once.

The investigators are looking at 50 suspects on suspicion of right-wing extremist crimes;

four men were arrested.

Among other things, you are urgently suspected of membership in a right-wing extremist criminal organization and dangerous bodily harm.

Marlene Grunert

Editor in Politics.

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Stephen Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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The more than 800 investigating officers and around 200 special task forces deployed in eleven federal states - especially in Thuringia, where the right-wing extremist scene has apparently once again made a particularly prominent appearance.

For decades it has been one of the strongest in all of Germany;

the core trio of the “NSU” also came from here.

The federal prosecutor's office had three of the four urgent suspects arrested in Eisenach on Wednesday and had ten other people searched.

They are all said to be supporters of the right-wing extremist group "Knockout 51", a right-wing extremist martial arts group which, according to the federal prosecutor, "attracts young, nationalist-minded men under the guise of joint physical training, deliberately indoctrinates them with right-wing extremist ideas and trains them for street fights".

Leon R., one of those arrested, is said to be the founder and ringleader of the group and to have led the training.

In Eisenach, the group apparently trained regularly in the "Flieder Volkshaus", the state office of the NPD.

The federal prosecutor assumes that "Knockout 51" has been planning serious crimes since March 2020 at the latest, especially attacks on the left spectrum, the police and "other people who, according to the right-wing extremist and racist world view of the group, may be fought".

Weapons should therefore also be used in disputes with leftists.

In Eisenach, "Knockout 51" is said to have tried to create a "Nazi neighborhood" and to establish itself as a "regulatory force".

The four arrested people are said to have committed several bodily harm offenses on so-called neighborhood strips and in some cases seriously injured their victims.

According to their own statements, Thuringia's Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been keeping the suspects, who apparently also operated in the Wartburg district, under observation for a long time.

The troops have constantly tried to penetrate into the middle of society, said constitutional protection chief Stephan Kramer of the FAZ. He described the "Lilac People's House" as "the center of the scene", which was also used as a basis for raids.

According to Kramer, the neo-Nazis have already rented out rooms in the Volkshaus for birthday and family celebrations.