Police raided the “Kollektiv Zwickau” group on Tuesday morning, investigating 12 people aged 18 to 36 on suspicion of, among other offenses, forming a criminal organization. Dresden prosecutors and Saxony’s State Criminal Police Office said the suspects joined together in 2022 as a communist group to oppose political opponents and what they described as “inhuman structures.” The group is suspected of attacking right-wing extremists, with some incidents allegedly resulting in injuries.
Four suspects were arrested under warrants. A fifth was provisionally detained after allegedly assaulting a police officer during a search. The operation included searches of numerous homes in the Zwickau district, Leipzig, Saalfeld in Thuringia, Hamburg and Bremen. All five detainees were due to appear before an investigating judge at Dresden District Court on Tuesday.
The group takes its name from the Saxon city of Zwickau, where most of its members are from. Saxony’s domestic intelligence agency describes it as a communist, Marxist-Leninist organization affiliated with the nationwide Rote Jugend Deutschland network, and estimates that it has 15 members. The agency says the group advocates creating a revolutionary communist single party and seeks to appeal to young people through themes including antifascism and anticapitalism, as well as what it calls a “sporty-militant” appearance.
The group has also called on social media for attacks on “Nazis,” according to the report, while promoting pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protests against arms companies. Police previously searched properties linked to the group in Zwickau, Dresden, Saalfeld and Schwarzenberg in February 2025.
The raids come as events are being held in Zwickau and elsewhere to mark 15 years since the self-revelation of the right-wing terrorist group National Socialist Underground. The NSU murdered nine migrants and a police officer between 2000 and 2007; its three principal members had lived underground in Zwickau for years. The group’s history is also used by left-wing radical organizations such as Kollektiv Zwickau to criticize the state for not acting decisively enough against right-wing extremists.
Sources: FAZ.