Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers
The far-left Vulkangruppe‘s latest attack left tens of thousands without electricity in freezing winter temperatures.
by A.R. Fomenko
VIENNA BUREAU – The Volcano has erupted again in Germany – wreaking havoc without shaking the Earth. This is not a geologic event, but a militant one, attacking the power grid in Berlin. The episode unfolded over the weekend in the dead of a bitter January, when tens of thousands of Berliners woke up to a city stripped of light, heat, and motion. Emergency crews scrambled as the scale of the January 3 blackout became clear. Some 50,000 households and 2,200 businesses were without power. Hospitals switched to emergency generators. Schools and businesses closed. Families huddled in apartments without heat or electricity. As of January 6, the grid has not fully been restored.
This wasn’t an accident or a weather event. It was arson; deliberate, targeted, and political.
A familiar name quickly resurfaced: Vulkangruppe.
Increasingly, when infrastructure burns, and a manifesto appears afterward, that name is signed at the bottom.
READ MORE from A.R. Fomenko in the Vienna Bureau.
The “Volcano Group” is a shadowy far‑left militant collective that claims to view itself as waging acts of “self‑defence” against the fossil‑fuel economy. They use explosives to start fires that target the arteries of modern life: power grids, industrial sites, and transport infrastructure. Their operations are low‑tech but precise, designed for maximum disruption rather than mass casualties.
Graphic created for Soldier of Fortune.
The latest incident unfolded early on Saturday, when power cables on a bridge near a gas-fired plant in southwest Berlin caught fire. The flames were quickly extinguished, but the damage had been done. The Vulkangruppe claimed responsibility in a letter to police. In a statement, they apologized to less affluent residents impacted by the outage but made clear their disdain for “the many owners of villas” that were impacted. Some hospitals regained power by Sunday, but thousands remain in the dark.
Berlin’s mayor condemned the attacks.
“These are not childish pranks, but rather professional criminals who attacked these power grids,” Mayor Kai Wegner Wegner told German public broadcaster RBB. “This is not just arson or sabotage. This is already terrorism. It was a left-wing extremist group that once again attacked our infrastructure and, in doing so, also endangered the lives of people, of elderly people who may need ventilators, of families with small children, and we now have to catch these perpetrators.”
This was not the first eruption from the Volcano Group.
German security services trace Vulkangruppe-linked arson back to at least 2011, when the name appeared in connection with attacks on infrastructure in Berlin.
In 2018, members claimed responsibility for burning high‑voltage power lines in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. The incident caused a blackout affecting roughly 6,500 homes and hundreds of businesses. Additional attacks occurred over the years.
In 2024, Vulkangruppe published a letter claiming responsibility for arson at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Grünheide. The letter read like a manifesto from the underground.
“Greetings to all those on the run, in hiding, in prisons, and in the resistance!” it read in German. “…We sabotaged Tesla today.” The shutdown was a “gift,” the authors noted, adding: “The myth of green growth is nothing more than a dirty ideological trick.”
The group may or may not be centrally organized, according to a European security source familiar with the matter.
“It could just be a convenient name for loosely aligned anarchist-extremists,” the source said. “But the result is the same. They cause blackouts and chaos.”
A representative from Vulkangruppe could not immediately be located. (If one is available to answer questions, you can reach me via email, [email protected]).
Security services continue to monitor and assess the group’s activities and potential transnational reach, police said.
Berlin’s blackout underscores a hard truth for citizens and city officials, the security source said, adding:
“Even a small group can plunge a city into chaos.”
On January 6, Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office said they have taken over the investigation.
A.R. Fomenko is based out of Soldier of Fortune’s Vienna Bureau.
