In the morning there was a power outage in parts of Brandenburg – the Tesla factory was also affected. It was evacuated and production came to a standstill. A left-wing extremist group has now declared that it had set fire to an electricity pylon.
The “Vulkan Group”, classified as left-wing extremist, has committed itself to an “attack on the power supply” near the Tesla factory near Berlin as a protest against the US car manufacturer. “We sabotaged Tesla today,” the group said in a letter. The Brandenburg police assume arson, and the State Security Office of the State Criminal Police Office began the investigation.
The “volcano group” was already suspected of carrying out an arson attack on the power supply at the Tesla construction site in 2021. At the time, she accused Tesla on the website Indymedia.org of being neither green, ecological nor social.
The Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution wrote about the confession letter in its 2021 report. It also said: “In recent years, left-wing extremists have carried out arson attacks in Berlin as ‘volcano groups’ several times.”
Authorities are already investigating arson
The police had previously stated that they were assuming an arson attack. Production in the only European Tesla car factory has been at a standstill since the morning following the power outage. The factory in Grünheide was evacuated early in the morning.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser strongly condemned the alleged arson attack. “Such an attack on our electricity infrastructure is a serious crime that cannot be justified by anything,” said the SPD politician. The investigation must examine whether there are political motives. “If a left-wing extremist motive is confirmed, then that is further evidence that the left-wing extremist scene does not shy away from attacks on critical energy infrastructure,” she explained.
Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Michael Stübgen also said: “If the initial findings are confirmed, it will be a perfidious attack on our electricity infrastructure.” That will have consequences. “Here, thousands of people were cut off from basic services and put in danger.”
Musk: “Dumbest eco-terrorists”
Tesla boss Elon Musk expressed his anger in Portal “Stopping the production of electric vehicles instead of fossil fuel vehicles is extremely stupid.” The Tesla boss wrote the words “extremely stupid” in German.
Electricity pole set on fire
According to the ministry, the perpetrators deliberately set fire to a high-voltage pylon in the region in the east of Brandenburg near Berlin early in the morning. The fire damaged the high-voltage line so much that the power supply to the surrounding towns and the nearby Tesla factory failed. The supply to the surrounding communities has now at least been restored, said the supplier Edis.
The State Criminal Police Office has already started investigations. The electricity pylon in question is free in a field and is not fenced in.
This high-voltage power line mast near Spreenhagen was set on fire – disrupting the power supply not only to the Tesla factory, but also to thousands of households.
There have been protests around the plant for days. Since Thursday, around 80 to 100 environmental activists have been occupying part of the state forest in Brandenburg near the factory, which Elon Musk’s company wants to clear in the event of an expansion of its site.