German police raid neo-Nazi criminal youth groups

Police have raided around 50 homes and other locations, targeting people suspected of involvement in far-right criminal youth groups that have recently emerged in Germany.

Prosecutors said the suspects were believed to be part of two groups, "Jung & Stark" (JS), or Young and Strong, and "Deutsche Jugend Voran" (DJV), which means Forwards German Youth.

No arrests were made in Wednesday's raids, which took place in 12 states, mainly in the east and south of Germany, including Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony.

In a statement, federal prosecutors said the raids targeted individuals suspected of organising violence through social media and forming nationwide networks.

"Some of the accused are said to have attacked members of the left-wing scene or people they believed to be paedophiles. In each case, the victims were beaten by several attackers and sustained significant injuries," prosecutors said.

During their meetings, authorities say, group members have called "for acts of violence against political opponents and against alleged paedophiles".

Last year one of the leaders of DJV was sentenced to more than three years in prison after a string of violent attacks against political opponents in Berlin.

Twenty-four year-old Julian M, along with a group of 16 to 23 year olds, was convicted of brutally beating up a number of people who appeared to be wearing emblems connected to the political left.

More than 600 police were involved in Wednesday's raids.

There is deep concern in Germany about young people being drawn into far-right activity and violence targeting both left-wing figures and LGBT communities.

Both JS and DJV operate openly, with a visible presence online, on Telegram, Instagram and other social media platforms.

Jakob Guhl, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says many of those who join JS and DJV are "pretty young", in their teens or early 20s. The groups are "explicitly militant" and "not secretive", he adds.

Although far-right groups in the Germany have not in the past hidden their activities, recent groups such as JS and DJV have shared their activities more openly on social networks, in an apparent bid to recruit young disenfranchised men.

JS has hundreds of followers on social media, but similar, smaller groups have appeared in local areas, especially the east, since 2024.

Guhl told the BBC that unlike more mainstream far-right movements like the AfD and the Identitarians, which appealed to "broader audiences", JS and DJV were more focused on practising martial arts, attending protests and beating up people they saw as their enemies.