Germany targets teens allegedly plotting attacks on migrants
In a series of early morning raids, police took into custody five male suspects between the ages of 14 and 18 in the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg and Hesse, the Federal Prosecutor General's office said.
The group they are accused of being a part of calls itself the Last Wave of Defence and is alleged to have plotted attacks targeting refugees and political opponents.
"The members of this organization see themselves as the last resort for the defence of the 'German nation,'" the office said in a statement
"Their goal is to bring about a collapse of the democratic system in the Federal Republic of Germany through acts of violence, primarily against migrants and political opponents."
Four of those detained are accused of membership in a terrorist organization and one of supporting such an organization. The Federal Prosecutor's Office also lists attempted murder, arson and property damage among the charges.
Police also began searching 13 properties in the states of Saxony and Thuringia in an operation related to three further German nationals who have already been remanded in custody, prosecutors said.
Three of the detained are said to have been ringleaders of the group, which is believed to have been founded around April 2024.
In February, investigators in Saxony foiled a suspected planned attack by the group on an asylum shelter in the town of Senftenberg, in the state of Brandenburg near Berlin, thanks to a tip-off by a journalist.
That same month police searched a flat and another property in the Saxon city of Meissen, recovering explosives, brass knuckles, one-handed knives, ammunition, alarm guns and airsoft guns, according to prosecutors in Dresden. A 21-year-old German man, who was detained that day, is suspected of having procured the weapons for an attack on the asylum facility in Senftenberg.
According to the public prosecutor's office, the explosives were industrially manufactured pyrotechnics.
German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig said it was "particularly shocking" that the five people detained on Wednesday had all been minors at the time the group was founded, stressing the need for policies to counteract the radicalization of young people.
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