These are the left-wing extremist Tesla attackers who are driving Elon Musk crazy

The arson on an electricity pole at the Tesla factory near Berlin dominated the news on Tuesday. Around noon, a letter of responsibility from the so-called “Deactivate the Tesla Volcano Group!” appeared on the well-known radical left website “Kontrapolis”. German state security is investigating.

In their letter, the alleged perpetrators explain what they wanted to achieve with an attack on the high-voltage pylon near the so-called ‘Gigafactory’. It is not the first attack by the volcano groups.

What are the objectives of the ‘volcano groups’? How should they be classified politically? And what attacks have they committed in the past?

Who are the volcanic groups?

In recent years, the ‘volcano groups’ have repeatedly claimed responsibility for politically motivated attacks on infrastructure, especially in and around Berlin.

In 2018, the “Volcano Group NetzHerrschaft Zerreissen” claimed responsibility for cutting several cable connections in Berlin-Charlottenburg. At that time, 6,500 households and 400 business premises were without power for hours. At the time, the state security service responsible for politically motivated crimes investigated – without success. At the time, those who caused the blackout said their aim was to paralyze operations at Tegel Airport and network connections in the government district with their act of sabotage.

Another sabotage operation took place in 2019 – this time the perpetrators attacked the cables of the S-Bahn and long-distance trains in Berlin-Karlshorst. The “Vulkangruppe OK” claimed responsibility for the crime in a letter of responsibility on the platform “Indymedia” and expressed solidarity with the climate activists of “Fridays for Future”. “A real general strike also includes blockades and fiery acts of sabotage,” the group wrote at the time.

One of the so-called volcano groups has again claimed responsibility for the recent attack on the electricity pylon. This time, the people suspected of causing the fire at Grünheide called themselves “Turn off Tesla!” They had more success with their project than their predecessors – as operations at the so-called ‘Gigafactory’, as Tesla itself calls the large production factory, came to a standstill on Tuesday. The state security service is investigating the group again.

Musk responded on Twitter, writing: “These are either the dumbest eco-terrorists on the planet, or they are puppets of those who don’t have good environmental goals. Stopping the production of electric vehicles in favor of fossil fuel vehicles is extremely stupid.”

Where do the volcano groups stand politically?

The previous confession letters from the volcano groups show a clear left-wing extremist and anti-capitalist attitude. In their tone, the group’s confession letters resemble the anti-capitalist pamphlet “The Coming Uprising,” which was published in 2007 by a French group called the “Invisible Committee.”

In ‘The Coming Uprising’ the ‘Invisible Committee’ describes the ‘symptoms of the collapse of Western democracies’. As an alternative to the current prevailing system, the authors propose a society of sub-municipalities and self-governing, ecological organizations.

Ideologically, the confession letters of the volcano groups are of the same nature. However, the perpetrators still cite radical, intersectional feminism as an important core element for their motivation for the attack on the electricity pylon at the Gigafactory. “Our gift for March 8 is to turn off Tesla” – March 8 is International Women’s Day, when left-wing and left-wing radical groups in particular draw attention to gender inequality.

What does the group’s statement of responsibility say?

In the responsibility letter, the ‘volcano group expresses Tesla!’ expresses his solidarity. with the demonstrators who have occupied parts of the forest near the Tesla factory to prevent the factory’s expansion.

“Tesla is a symbol of ‘green capitalism’ and a totalitarian technological attack on society,” the group said in its letter. The high water consumption of the Tesla factory is particularly criticized.

The group also accuses Tesla of a “totalitarian technological attack.” The camera technology in the vehicles is a monitoring tool that the company uses for training purposes for its self-driving artificial intelligence. “No Tesla in the world should be safe from our flaming rage,” the responsibility letter said.

But the radical left ‘Vulcan Group’ is not only concerned with Tesla, but also with Elon Musk’s other companies. The Starlink satellite system is also a thorn in the side of the suspected arsonists in Grünheide. “Starlink is a military actor,” the responsibility letter says. The Ukrainian, Russian and Israeli armies used the system to carry out attacks – therefore it must be rejected in its entirety: “Coiled like a string of pearls made of garbage, they (the Starlink satellites, editor’s note) plow through the sky to to… To complete the surveillance.”

Following their criticism of Musk and his companies, the “Volcano Group Shut Down Tesla!” against capitalism in general – before formulating detailed instructions on how to destroy the cables in a utility pole. At this time it cannot be independently verified whether the high-voltage pylon in Grünheide was actually attacked in the manner described and whether the method formulated in the responsibility letter represents knowledge of the perpetrator.

In general, the confession letter does not really read like a critical, theoretical discussion of a radical left group, but rather like a somewhat insane pamphlet with a fair amount of intellectual confusion. The confession letter also mentions “allies other than planetary” that await Elon Musk in the event of his hypothetical escape from Earth to Mars. “Solar storms would crash his rocket,” it continues.

Does the state have the ‘volcano groups’ on its radar?

Yes. The volcano groups were already mentioned in 2018 in the report of the Federal Ministry of the Interior for the Protection of the Constitution – at the time because of the aforementioned attack in Berlin-Charlottenburg. About the group it says: “Attacks on the network infrastructure must first affect the operator directly. The sudden loss of usual infrastructure and delivery services should also trigger a ‘thinking process’ among those indirectly affected, such as commuters or private Internet users, and make it clear to them that they have been disconnected or ‘liberated’ from ‘instruments of control’. ‘.

The Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution also has the ‘volcano groups’ on its radar. In the 2020 report, the authority names left-wing radicals in connection with an arson attack on the Heinrich Hertz Center in Berlin. At the time, the responsible ‘volcano group’ wanted to express militant criticism of the Corona app with its action. “To prevent any further weakening of fundamental rights and the expansion of surveillance measures, we today set fire to a shaft containing communications cables that supply, among other things, the ‘Heinrich Herz Institute’,” said a responsibility letter quoted by the Bureau for the protection of the constitution.

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