As of: March 7, 2024, 11:49 a.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
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The police suspect left-wing extremists behind the arson attack on the Tesla factory.
Brandenburg's Interior Minister calls on the Federal Prosecutor to investigate - and issues a warning.
Update from Thursday, March 7th, 10:59 a.m.:
After the arson attack on the power supply of the Tesla factory in Gründheide, Brandenburg's Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) is demanding that the Federal Prosecutor General take over the investigation.
“We are overwhelmed by our state police capabilities to build up the persecution pressure as necessary,” said the minister on
Deutschlandfunk
.
According to Stübgen, the state security agency at the State Criminal Police Office considers the letter of confession from the left-wing extremist Vulkan group to be genuine.
This contains information that only the perpetrators can know.
The group specializes in attacks on energy infrastructure.
“It is obviously based in Berlin and operates from there nationwide, possibly internationally.” Left-wing extremist activities in Brandenburg are “almost always controlled from Berlin.”
The state security police consider the left-wing extremist confession letter after the arson attack on the Tesla factory's power supply to be authentic.
© Lutz Deckwerth/dpa
The CDU politician also calls for better protection of critical infrastructure in Germany.
“This attack shows that we have many such critical infrastructure points in Germany that are in fact not protected.” Stübgen calls for analyzes to identify points where perpetrators can cause the greatest damage using simple means and little effort.
After Tesla attack: Factory stands idle until next week – high damage worth millions
Update from Wednesday, March 6th, 8:21 p.m.:
After the attack on a power pole, production at the US electric car manufacturer Tesla in Grünheide near Berlin will probably remain interrupted until the end of next week.
The company announced this on Wednesday evening upon request.
The Bild
newspaper had previously
reported on it.
An electricity pylon is the target of the suspected left-wing extremist arson attack that paralyzes the Tesla factory in Grünheide.
© Patrick Pleul/dpa
Update from Wednesday, March 6th, 8:10 a.m.:
After a suspected arson attack, the US car manufacturer Tesla is expecting a day-long production outage at its factory in Grünheide near Berlin.
The police are continuing to investigate whether a left-wing extremist group is responsible.
Unknown perpetrators set fire to a power pole in a field.
There was a blackout in Tesla's only European car factory and for tens of thousands of residents in the region.
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According to Tesla, the consequences of the power outage are enormous: “We currently do not expect that we will be able to ramp up production again this week,” said plant manager André Thierig.
“Almost all of the approximately 12,000 employees had to be sent home on Tuesday because of the production standstill.” Thierig spoke of damage “in the high nine-figure range.”
Trucks were piled up in front of the plant on Tuesday.
Electric cars have been built in Grünheide for almost two years.
The company wants to increase its production in Grünheide from the planned 500,000 cars a year to one million.
The factory manager said: “I can’t say at this point whether this will have an impact on the further expansion of the factory.”
After Tesla attack: Car manufacturer has to suspend production for several days
Update from Tuesday, March 5th, 4:25 p.m.:
The car manufacturer Tesla expects production to be stopped for several days after a suspected arson attack on the power supply at its factory in Grünheide.
He doesn't expect production to start up again this week, said plant manager Andre Thierig on Tuesday at a short-term press conference at the factory near Berlin.
It is still unclear whether this could happen at the beginning of next week.
Tesla is suffering economic damage in the high nine-figure range as a result of the production stop.
The company is now unable to produce more than 1,000 vehicles per day.
“We are deeply concerned about what happened here.”
Update from Tuesday, March 5th, 3:45 p.m.:
Tesla boss Elon Musk reacted to the alleged attack in view of the production stop at his factory in Grünheide due to a power outage.
“These are either the stupidest eco-terrorists in the world or they are puppets of those who do not have good environmental goals,” Musk wrote on Tuesday in English on the X portal (formerly Twitter).
“Stopping the production of electric vehicles instead of fossil fuel vehicles is extremely stupid.” The Tesla boss wrote the words “extremely stupid” in German.
Left-wing radical “Vulkan group” claims responsibility for Tesla attack
Update from Tuesday, March 5th, 12:40 p.m.:
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 on Tuesday.
The Brandenburg police are currently assuming arson, and the State Security Office of the State Criminal Police Office has started the investigation.
The power outage caused a production stop at Tesla, and numerous households in the region were also affected.
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 radical left-wing 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.”
“Perfidious attack”: Brandenburg’s Interior Minister on arson
Update from Tuesday, March 5th, 11 a.m.:
After large-scale power outages in the Oder-Spree district in Brandenburg, Brandenburg's Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) spoke of a "perfidious attack" on the electricity infrastructure.
According to the Interior Ministry, unknown people set fire to a high-voltage pylon between Steinfurt and Hartmannsdorf early on Tuesday morning, causing a power outage in surrounding towns and the nearby Tesla factory.
According to police, the State Criminal Police Office is investigating suspected arson.
A Tesla spokeswoman told the AFP news agency that the power outage in the public grid, which was presumably caused by an arson attack, “led to a production stoppage” at the factory in Grünheide.
“We are able to put the production facilities in a safe condition,” she added.
Production is at a standstill and employees have been sent home.
The company is in close contact with the authorities and with the energy service provider Edis.
It is currently unclear when production can resume.
“If the initial findings are confirmed, it will be a perfidious attack on our electricity infrastructure,” explained Stübgen.
“That will have consequences.” Thousands of people have been cut off from basic services and put in danger.
“The constitutional state will react to such an act of sabotage with the utmost severity,” explained the Interior Minister.
Police investigate arson: Tesla factory in Grünheide evacuated
First report:
On Tuesday morning, the Tesla factory in Grünheide came to a standstill - due to a widespread power outage.
Tesla employees reported this to
Handelsblatt
.
“We were not given a reason,” an employee told the newspaper.
“Those who came at 6:30 a.m. still came in, but are now coming out again.” Cell phone recordings show perplexed employees in front of the factory gate asking each other if anyone knows more.
A spokeswoman has since confirmed that the factory had been evacuated.
As Tesla continued, all measures were taken to secure the production facilities.
After consultation with the electricity provider Edis, Tesla does not expect production to restart quickly.
Tesla factory shut down due to power outage – factory evacuated
The reason is said to be a burning electricity pylon in Goßen-Neu Zittau (Märkisch Oderland district) in the region near the Tesla Gigafactory, which caused a major power outage on Tuesday.
As the police announced in the morning, the fire department was called to the fire at around 5:15 a.m. and began extinguishing the fire.
According to a spokesman, the fire caused a power outage in the area.
Police spokesman Roland Kamenz said the electricity pylon was said to be free-standing in a field.
A police helicopter was also deployed in the morning after the alarm was raised about the fire.
Regarding the possible cause, the spokesman said so far: “We are investigating in all directions.”
Power outage due to burning electricity pylon – report speaks of “arson attack”
However, according to information from the
Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung
and
Bild
, the fire department had to briefly interrupt its firefighting operation.
A tent belonging to environmental activists camping there was discovered near the scene of the fire, with a reference to explosive ordnance that may have been buried.
Now the explosive ordnance disposal service has taken over the operation, according to the newspapers.
Bild
therefore
also speaks of an “arson attack” with damage to Tesla that is likely to run into the “millions”.
However, this has not yet been officially confirmed by the police.
Since Thursday, around 80 to 100 environmental activists have been occupying part of the state forest in Brandenburg near the Tesla factory, which Elon Musk's company wants to clear in the event of an expansion of its site.
The activists have built around ten tree houses several meters high and announced that they want to hold out for as long as possible.
The Grünheide citizens' initiative also speaks out against Tesla's expansion plans and shows solidarity with the occupiers.
With material from dpa