Germany detains suspect in power grid attacks. Saxon minister calls confession letter bearing his address mysterious

On Tuesday, German police detained a 48-year-old man near the Weisweiler lignite power plant close to Aachen, suspected of a series of sabotage attacks on the electricity grid in three federal states. At the time of his arrest he was carrying explosive devices, and police found further explosive charges in a tent hidden in the undergrowth. In letters that investigators attribute to the detained man, the author claims responsibility for the attacks and justifies them by opposition to the burning of fossil fuels. The motive remains under investigation — Saxony's interior minister does not rule out that the man acted on someone else's orders. Tagesschau ↗ Tagesspiegel ↗

He was detained during a check, with more explosives in his tent

The man, who appears in German media as Daniel V., is permanently resident in Gevelsberg in the Ennepe-Ruhr district. Police stopped him in the vicinity of the Weisweiler power plant between Aachen and Düren; according to the newspaper Welt, he was on foot and attempted to get around a police cordon. According to North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul, what proved decisive was the vigilance of the responding officers, who recognized him and detained him. He did not resist. Welt ↗ WDR ↗

In the undergrowth near the site of the operation, police found a tent containing further explosive charges. The items the man was carrying are being examined by a bomb disposal expert from the North Rhine-Westphalia state criminal police office. In the evening, investigators also removed the suspect's bicycle from the scene. He had been sought under an arrest warrant issued in Cottbus, Brandenburg — the place where the first attack on the grid became known. Tagesspiegel ↗ Tagesschau ↗

Footage from the scene was broadcast the same day by the German news channel WELT. Reporter Greta Wagener shows the area around the power plant and describes the tent the suspect is said to have been living in.

Rockets, wire, and a short circuit

The suspect allegedly set up launching devices at several locations and used homemade rockets to fire thin wire over high-voltage lines in order to cause a short circuit. A short circuit occurred in at least two cases. In Bergheim, west of Cologne, this shut down several power plant units for several days; in Brandenburg, two short circuits occurred at the Turnow-Preilack substation near the Jänschwalde power plant, where more than twenty homemade rockets are said to have fired conductive material onto the line. According to available reports, neither of these two attacks interrupted electricity supply to consumers. ZDF heute ↗ Welt ↗

At two locations in eastern Saxony, investigators found a total of 21 homemade explosive devices which, according to police, were intended to cause a short circuit — authorities initially reported twelve and on Monday announced the discovery of a further nine. On the same day, police discovered additional launching devices near a high-voltage line close to Weisweiler, along with another confession letter. Whether this particular letter and these devices actually originate from the detained man is not clear. ČT24 ↗ Tagesschau ↗

The scope of the plan may have been considerably larger. According to WDR, the tabloid newspaper Bild reports that Daniel V. had placed more than fifty launching devices under high-voltage lines across Germany, all of which were supposed to detonate on September 1st, though morning dew at the scenes is said to have rendered the rockets ineffective. WDR takes over this information from Bild, and the cited reports include no independent confirmation of it, so we present it here as a claim, not as an investigative finding. WDR ↗

Schuster points to an unusual letter

According to Reul, investigators are able to attribute two confession letters to the detained man without doubt, based among other things on handwriting, while the third is still being verified. In the letter available to WDR, the author justifies the attacks by inadequate climate protection: "... my main motivation is (...) averting or preventing the immense suffering caused by the use of fossil fuels." Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt spoke of the "climate extremism" of a lone perpetrator and stated that the letters contain knowledge of attack details which, in his view, indicate the author's involvement. Lignite is still mined and burned today in all three affected federal states. WDR ↗ ZDF heute ↗

However, Saxony's Interior Minister Armin Schuster of the CDU pointed to unusual features of the letter and called it mysterious. In his view, the content is unusual for a self-incrimination, the motive is described very briefly, and the letter is handwritten and includes a full address — "as if the perpetrator wanted to be caught." According to him, it could be left-wing extremism or a climate motive, but it is equally possible that the suspect acted on someone else's orders. He declined to comment on who might be behind such an order, saying he did not want to speculate. Tagesspiegel ↗

According to Reul, police are also using interrogations to verify whether the man acted alone or had accomplices. So far there are no indications of accomplices. According to WDR, Reul also mentioned indications of psychological problems, which are being examined together with the motive stated in the letter. At the same time, in Duisburg he refused to draw any conclusions from indications of psychological problems or of the perpetrator having been paid, calling such conclusions "reading coffee grounds." Brandenburg's Interior Minister Jan Redmann spoke of a "wayward lone perpetrator" and added that such a perpetrator is just one of many threat scenarios that must be prepared for. WDR ↗ Tagesspiegel ↗

The question of motive was taken up on the day of the arrest by Germany's public broadcaster tagesschau, in an interview with ARD reporter Michael Heussen.

Schuster considers a similarity to Leipzig unlikely

The series came in the weeks during which Germany has been dealing with Russian sabotage on its territory. On September 1st, the German government identified Russia as responsible for an attempted drone attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport, and Moscow retaliated by ordering the closure of the German consulate general in Saint Petersburg as well as the Goethe Institutes. Schuster described the probability that the grid attacks are a case similar to the Leipzig drone incident as low. A low probability, however, is not the same as ruling it out. Tagesspiegel ↗

Also read: After Leipzig, Moscow ordered the closure of the consulate in Saint Petersburg

The uncertainty in determining the cause is also illustrated by a fire at a Berlin substation the same week. Overnight on Monday, a substation in Berlin's Tiergarten exploded and caught fire, and grid operator 50Hertz reported considerable damage. Berlin's police chief Barbara Slowik Meisel told a parliamentary committee that, according to initial findings, a technical fault triggered a short circuit that then caused the explosion. About ninety traffic lights in the city stopped working, though according to the news agency dpa, their connection to the fire was not confirmed. According to a police spokesperson, investigators are looking in all directions and are keeping sabotage in mind, but so far have no conclusive evidence in any direction. Tagesschau ↗

Broader context is provided by data from the Federal Criminal Police Office. According to a Deutschlandfunk report from early September, the office has recorded 165 suspected cases of sabotage this year. These are recorded suspicions across sectors, not confirmed attacks on the electricity grid, and the figure says nothing about the perpetrators or their motives. Deutschlandfunk ↗

Weisweiler lies twenty kilometers from the Dutch border

Neighboring countries also followed the case closely. Belgian public broadcaster VRT framed it from the outset as the case of a climate activist and reported that the man had allegedly attempted to sabotage a line on Monday at Weisweiler itself — the very place where he was detained on Tuesday. The Weisweiler power plant generates electricity predominantly from lignite. VRT NWS ↗

Dutch broadcaster NOS noted that Weisweiler lies about twenty kilometers from the Dutch border near Limburg, and, citing the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, wrote that the suspect had also planned to strike in the Netherlands, with the town of Doetinchem reportedly among the possible targets. NOS attributes the report on possible targets in the Netherlands to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, not to an official statement by the authorities. NOS also states that German police announced they are investigating a possible terrorist motive. NOS ↗

Limits of this account

Almost everything we know about the case comes from statements made by police and ministers on the day of the arrest, not from an indictment. The man is a suspect, not a convicted person, and German authorities have not released his name — the initial of the surname is a local media convention that we are following here.

A second point is that individual ministers characterize the same case differently. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU speaks of the climate extremism of a lone perpetrator, while Saxony's minister Armin Schuster of the CDU speaks of a mysterious letter and does not rule out a paid commission. This is not a contradiction that we should resolve on the reader's behalf, but the actual current state of knowledge.

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*Illustrative photo: the Weisweiler lignite power plant near Aachen, in whose vicinity police detained the suspect. Author Grunpfnul, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.*