German police were searching the homes of 36 suspected members of two far-right youth groups on Wednesday morning, Germany’s federal public prosecutor said.
The groups, “Deutsche Jugend Voren (DJV)” (German Youth Forward) and “Jung und Stark (JS)” (Young and Strong), are being investigated by Germany’s federal public prosecutor for constituting a criminal organization.
The public prosecutor said more than 600 police officers searched about 50 locations in 12 federal states.
The suspects are primarily youths and young adults, some of whom, according to investigators, are known for violent behavior in the past.
Prosecutors said in a statement that “Some of the accused are said to have attacked members of the left-wing ideology or people they believed to be pedophiles. In each case, the victims were beaten by multiple attackers and suffered significant injuries.”
No arrests are planned at this time.
“The purpose of today’s search is to clarify the existing grounds for suspicion,” investigators said in a statement carried by the EPD news agency.
DJV and JS emerged in mid-2024 along with several other regionally and nationally organized far-right youth groups. Since then, he has been on the radar of German security officials. Both groups are considered vulnerable to violence.
Law enforcement agencies estimate that each group has several hundred members. Both groups operate nationwide, but DJV is mostly concentrated in Berlin and Brandenburg.