German police seize 33,000 pieces of Nazi audio media in a massive security campaign

German police seized about 33,000 pieces of audio media, including CDs, cylinders and cassette tapes, during a large-scale security campaign in which hundreds of police officers participated across several federal states to target Nazi music networks.

The branch of the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (of the police) in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern reported on Friday morning (October 2, 2026) that more than 20,000 pieces of these media were found in the possession of the four main defendants in this case. The security forces also seized about 130 electronic storage media, including hard disks, mobile phones, USB memory sticks, and the like, in addition to seizing financial assets and property estimated at more than two million euros, including nearly 11,000 euros in cash that were in the possession of the main defendants.

The crackdown's investigations focused on music productions that promoted "a neo-Nazi ideology that is anti-Semitic, racist, and against human dignity."

It is suspected that 4 defendants, aged 55, 52, 48, and 43 years, formed a permanent organization, no later than 2020, with the aim of producing and marketing CDs and cylinders of this type. The authorities accuse them of belonging to a far-right criminal group.

Production companies outside Germany

Inspections also took place in Estonia, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic. The authorities reported on Wednesday that the audio media was likely being produced there. She added that all the sites that were searched in those countries were limited to companies that did not know what type of music they were producing.

The inspections and raids also included the states: Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, and Thuringia, and targeted eight other defendants facing charges of incitement to racial hatred linked to these recordings.

No one was arrested during that campaign; The German authorities stated that the raids aimed to remove existing suspicious evidence. More than 390 members of the police forces of the relevant German states, the federal government, and neighboring European countries participated in the operation, which was led by the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern State Criminal Investigation Office branch.