Their mode of operation has now been identified. The collective called “Vulkan Gruppe” – or the group of volcanoes, in French – claimed responsibility this Tuesday, March 5, for the “sabotage” of a Tesla factory, located in Grünheide, a suburb of Berlin. The American manufacturer of electric cars announced that it had been forced to halt its production in this area, following a fire targeting an electricity pylon near the site. The damage is estimated at several hundred million euros.
“With our sabotage, we set ourselves the goal of achieving the largest possible blackout of the Tesla gigafactory,” the group, classified as left-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, published on the Indymedia platform. And to complete: Tesla “eats land, resources, men, labor and to do so spits out 6,000 SUVs, killing machines and monster trucks per week”. The boss of Tesla, Elon Musk, reacted on his platform – he lashed out.
This is not the first time that the collective has attacked the Grünheide factory. The “Vulkan Gruppe” was already suspected, in 2021, of having set fire to six high-voltage cables near the site, while the factory was still under construction. Same technique: after the fire, the group posted a message on the Indymedia platform, ensuring that Tesla was “neither green, nor ecological, nor social”, we can read in the German daily Der Spiegel.
As a reminder, the Tesla factory near Berlin, opening in 2022, can manufacture around 500,000 cars per year. It produces the Model Y – the SUV at the top of electric vehicle sales in Europe – and employs some 11,500 people.
An “anarchist” group
Before targeting this site, the “Vulkan Gruppe”, created in 2011, attacked “railway cables”, sometimes “relay antennas” or “company vehicles”, is it indicated in the 2019 report on the protection of the Berlin Constitution. Their technique: setting fire to these infrastructures to “reveal their vulnerability”, disrupt public order and cause significant material damage.
“They see the sabotage of the electricity supply as part of their fight against capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism,” says the German magazine Focus. In the messages of “self-accusation”, as the report on the protection of the Berlin Constitution describes them, the authors change their names, but each time refer to Icelandic volcanoes: “Grimsvötn”, “Katla” or “Okay” again.
However, the composition and number of members remain unknown. Furthermore, “references to a pamphlet known in stage circles suggest that they are ideologically on the anarchist spectrum”, we can read in the report.