German Police Raid 50 Locations Targeting Far-Right Youth Groups

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

Prosecutors said the suspects belonged to two groups: Jung & Stark (JS), or Young and Strong, and Deutsche Jugend Voran (DJV), which means Forwards German Youth.

No arrests came from the raids, which hit 12 states, mainly in eastern and southern Germany including Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Federal prosecutors said in a statement that the raids focused on individuals suspected of organizing 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.

Authorities say group members have called for acts of violence against political opponents and alleged paedophiles during their meetings.

Last year, one DJV leader received a sentence of 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 people who appeared to wear emblems connected to the political left.

Germany has deep concern about young people drawn into far-right activity and violence targeting left-wing figures and LGBT communities.

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

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

Far-right groups in Germany have not hidden their activities in the past, but recent ones such as JS and DJV share them more openly on social networks to recruit young disenfranchised men.

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