Substations Sabotaged

German Police Hunt for Signer of Confession Letter

Police officers are searching a field near the Bergheim substation. A short circuit occurred there on Tuesday after cables were shot at the power lines.(Bild: APA/dpa/Henning Kaiser)

Following several suspected acts of sabotage targeting critical infrastructure in Germany, police have a suspect in their sights. Investigators were led to the suspect by a letter of claim that was signed with a name.

The letter refers to the incidents at the substations in Bergheim (North Rhine-Westphalia) and Jänschwalde (Brandenburg). It was sent by mail to the editorial office of the “taz,” as the newspaper reported on Thursday evening. According to the postmark, the letter was mailed from North Rhine-Westphalia.

Cables Shot at Power Lines
According to the newspaper, the sender presents himself as a lone perpetrator. He describes in detail the homemade rockets used to shoot cables at the high-voltage power lines near the power plants. This caused a short circuit at the Bergheim substation near Cologne.

Police are searching a field near the Bergheim substation. A short circuit occurred there on Tuesday after cables were fired at the power lines.(Bild: APA/dpa/Henning Kaiser)

As a motive for the acts of sabotage, the writer cites the “immeasurable suffering” caused by the use of fossil fuels. As reported by “Bild,” citing police sources, investigators are now searching for a man named Daniel V. from the Gevelsberg area in North Rhine-Westphalia. He is believed to be the author of the handwritten letter and to have signed it with his own name.

Suspect or copycat?
The police emphasize that it is still unclear whether the man actually has anything to do with the acts of sabotage or whether he is a copycat. In any case, a large-scale manhunt is underway across Germany.

The police believe there have been a total of three acts of sabotage since Tuesday: at the substations in Bergheim, Jänschwalde, and Dormagen. Suspicious objects were found at these locations (see graphic above). According to the police, the devices found near Dormagen closely resemble the launch mechanisms used in Bergheim to shoot cables across the overhead lines, thereby paralyzing several power plant units. According to information from “Bild,” the launch mechanisms were equipped with timers and copper wires. 

Two Additional Operations
In addition, there was an operation early Friday morning at the Ganderkesee substation near Oldenburg in Lower Saxony, close to Bremen, aftersuspicious circumstances were reported there. Most recently, police also responded to the Weisweiler plant near Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia because a letter claiming responsibility had mentioned another incident there. Here, too, the suspicion of sabotage remains unconfirmed.

In response to the power grid sabotage near the Jänschwalde power plant, Brandenburg’s Ministry of the Interior announced on Thursday the establishment of a new security center in the state to protect critical infrastructure. The attacks on the power grid demonstrated how vulnerable Germany’s critical infrastructure is. “The evidence is mounting that both attacks are part of a coordinated assault on our energy supply,” said Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Jan Redmann (CDU).