A letter posted to an infamous left-extremist website claims responsibility for a mass-arson attack against Amazon delivery trucks this week, and promises an “exciting week of action against Tesla” for “the social revolution”.
16 Amazon vans were burnt in Berlin on Tuesday night, while around the city multiple left-wing protests progressed as part of the May 1st ‘May Day’ worldwide leftist day of action in remembrance of an 1889 meeting of the Marxist International Socialist Congress in Paris. As reported police suspected arson and “masked” individuals were witnessed nearby at the time, but now a prominent extreme-left website — often used in the past to call for extremist action or to claim responsibility for attacks — acknowledges the burning of the delivery vehicles was their doing.
It claimed: “we used 6 fire devices to slow down at least 16 Amazon vans… Our gasoline-containing barbecue is intended to incite the fight against the oppression of people and nature and to fuel the inevitable confrontation between the exploited and those in power.”
28 April 2024, Berlin: “Disrupt Tesla – Clean e-cars? Dirty lie!” is written on a banner hanging from a minibus. Members of various alliances such as “Tesla den Hahn abdrehen”, “A100 stoppen!” and “Görlitz zaunfrei!” are celebrating a street party in Kreuzberg to demonstrate against Tesla and car policy. Photo: Annette Riedl/dpa (Photo by Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images)
‘Mostly Trouble-Free’ Riots: 16 Amazon Delivery Trucks Burnt, Brick Piles Appear on Leftist Protest Routeshttps://t.co/Y6A6aibCgM
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 1, 2024
The “militarism” statement named what it says are businesses too large and harmful to reform, which instead need to be destroyed as “Amazon, Tesla, Apple, Facebook [and] Google”. There are “endless arguments and ways to attack companies like Amazon and Tesla”, it said, while apparently promising further action.
“That’s why we’re looking forward to an exciting week of action against Tesla. Hello Jeff! Is your ego as big as the Amazon Tower? Do you see the clouds of smoke from up there? Elon, your GIGANTIC ego won’t be able to protect your handcarts!”, the anonymous post declared. B.Z. states Berlin police have confirmed they are aware of the leftist confession note.
Germany’s Die Welt newspaper reports nine cases of arsons against cars in Berlin today, and while the particular makes of those vehicles burnt isn’t cited, it nevertheless notes “targeted arson attacks on Teslas are increasing in the capital”.
dpatop – 06 March 2024, Brandenburg, Grünheide: An electricity pylon stands with traces of fire in a field near the Tesla car factory. Production at the Tesla car factory in Grünheide is at a standstill due to a power outage following an arson attack on the high-voltage pylon. The police are investigating suspected arson following a power failure on Tuesday morning with consequences for the Tesla factory in Grünheide near Berlin. A letter of confession has emerged. Photo: Patrick Pleul/dpa (Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images)
06 March 2024, Brandenburg, Grünheide: Workers build a temporary construction road to a power pole with traces of fire in a field near the Tesla car factory. Production at the Tesla car factory in Grünheide is at a standstill due to a power outage following an arson attack on a high-voltage pylon. The police are investigating suspected arson following a power outage on Tuesday morning with consequences for the Tesla factory in Grünheide near Berlin. A letter of confession has emerged. Photo: Patrick Pleul/dpa (Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Should Tesla vehicles be burnt in Berlin this week as apparently promised, it would not be the first time hard-left Berlin radicals had taken direct action against the electric vehicle company. As reported in March, left-wing extremist group Vulkangruppe claimed responsibility for an arson attack against the high voltage power lines leading to the Berlin Tesla Gigafactory. The power outage was sufficiently serious that as well as the factory having to close, sending 12,500 employees home, several nearby towns were also left without power.
The attack was investigated by German police as a terror attack.
This too is part of a little discussed, but major and growing, trend of left-extremist terrorism in Europe targetting the underpinnings of modern Western civilisation. As previously reported:
Breitbart has reported on many such instances of the hard-left attacking the basic infrastructure which does the heavy lifting for 21st century life, and railways are not an uncommon target. High-speed trains were sabotaged in Italy in 2019 by arson inside a power substation in a case, it was noted, that coincided with the court judgement on another group of left-wing extremists who were being sentenced for their role in a book shop bombing.
Although harder work and considerably more likely to cause loss of life, train derailments by the hard left have also been witnessed in recent years in Canada, with environmentalists protesting an oil pipeline by sabotaging trains carrying oil. In one case, a derailed oil train was engulfed in flames and 1.5 million litres of oil were spilt.
Data infrastructure including telephone exchanges and fibre optical cables, and supply power are also known. In 2019, a radio station and radio transmitter were burnt down in France. In 2020, 50,000 people lost internet access in the greater Paris region after telephone and data cables were cut, the culmination of a weeks-long campaign of such sabotage against information infrastructure. It was suspected the “ultra-left” could have been responsible.
In 2021, a series of apparently connected attacks were directed at telephone and internet services in France, with sabotage on several nights seeing data company work vans burnt out, fibre optic cables destroyed, and a communications tower destroyed. Left-wing actors took credit for the acts, saying in a statement: “it is not to protest against 5G in particular but in a broader context, fighting against the techno-world… We want to salute all the arsonists who are acting in the shadows at the moment and repeatedly beating this technological hell.”
There has been more of the same seen this year. In early April, the far-left was suspected in the major sabotage of a power station and nine power lines on two consecutive nights which left thousands of homes and a semiconductor factory without power. Just days later, several French cities were left totally without internet after major data cables in several different locations were cut in the same night. It was said of the timer that the coordinated strike was by “people who know the network”.
