Crisis Fuels Rise in German Left-Wing Extremist Violence

Following the 2007 protests at the G-8 meeting in Heiligendamm, the number of attacks by leftist extremists has risen dramatically in Germany. The government is increasing its focus on the autonomists, but authorities know little about a new generation that is torching cars, and worse, in its fight. The man is a member of Berlin's left-wing radical autonomist movement, and he's engaged in a struggle against the system. If a few things have to go up in flames as part of that struggle, it doesn't usually bother him too much.

But there are limits -- and the deaths of three people recently in Greece, employees at a bank where someone threw a firebomb, have left him contemplating them. "I never imagined something like this," the man says. He's come to a cafe at Kottbusser Tor in Berlin's diverse Kreuzberg district to talk about left-wing militancy in Germany. In his mid-twenties, he's wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt bearing the logo of the Zapatistas, Mexico's left-wing guerrilla movement. He gives no name, revealing only that he was involved in organizing the May 1 protest in Berlin and that he belongs to an anti-fascist group.

• "Attack from the Left? Automobile Arson a Trend in Berlin", Spiegel Online International, 9/4/09.