Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) had previously said at a meeting in Nuremberg that there was a "political background to these crimes". In view of the attacks on electricity substations in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia that took place on Tuesday, Herrmann spoke of an “increased risk of attacks” both on the infrastructure in Germany and on local defense companies.
Neither the Interior Minister nor the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office, where ZET is based, gave any specific suspicions as to who might be the possible mastermind of the actions. It is obvious that traces lead to Eastern Europe, as two suspects with Bulgarian nationality were arrested shortly after the ultimately failed arson attacks in the Berg am Laim district of Munich. They should be brought before the investigating judge. He then decides whether an arrest warrant will be issued against the 28-year-old Bulgarian and her compatriot, who is ten years her senior.
Around midnight, passers-by alerted the police that several incendiary devices had been thrown from a car on Mühldorfstrasse behind the Ostbahnhof. The arms companies Rohde & Schwarz and Helsing are based there, among others. It is currently not possible to say with certainty who exactly the attack was aimed at, whether just one of these companies or both, according to informed circles.
According to the Munich police, one of the incendiary devices started a fire, which was, however, extinguished by arriving officers. Another incendiary device did not ignite and was later defused by BLKA specialists, as a spokesman for the SZ authority confirmed. No one was injured in the action.
It is unclear whether further incendiary devices were found; as well as what type of incendiary devices were involved. The BLKA spokesman did not provide any further information; According to SZ information, these were not comparatively simple Molotov cocktails. A hand grenade, which according to unconfirmed reports was said to have detonated at Augsburg main station on Wednesday night, was also ruled out.
As part of a manhunt that was immediately launched, the two suspects were arrested at a nearby Esso gas station on Innsbrucker Ring. The extent to which the two people are connected to the event is now “the subject of the investigation,” according to the joint statement from the BLKA and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
According to a report by Bayerischer Rundfunk, the incendiary devices were thrown onto a construction site in front of Rohde & Schwarz's headquarters. However, the Attorney General's Office and the BLKA did not confirm that this technology company was the target of the attack. “There are several defense companies in the building complex in question,” the authorities said in a press release. The headquarters of Helsing, for example, is located diagonally across the street, which is why it cannot be ruled out that this company should also be hit.
Upon request, no official statement on the nighttime attack was available from Helsing. A spokeswoman for Rohde & Schwarz only confirmed that there had been “a police and fire service operation in the area around our Munich premises last night (…). However, the company premises themselves are not affected. In addition, the group “does not want to comment publicly at this time.”
The Rohde & Schwarz group develops and produces, among other things, radio and telecommunications systems for government and security authorities as well as the Bundeswehr. The start-up Helsing, founded in 2021, is primarily active in drone production and explicitly advertises defense concepts “to protect our democracy”.
Since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, local defense companies have increasingly come under the interest of foreign powers. Most recently, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) sent a security notice to relevant companies at the end of July and warned against espionage and sabotage measures on behalf of Russia. Just a few days earlier there had been a drone sighting over the area of the weapons manufacturer KNDS in Allach; A man from Moldova was arrested on suspicion of making security-related recordings.
However, Rohde & Schwarz had already come into the focus of militant opponents. After an attack on the power grid in the east of Munich in May 2021, Rohde & Schwarz was explicitly named as the target of the action in a letter of responsibility on a media platform used by left-wing radicals. However, the authenticity of the letter has not yet been confirmed by the security authorities.
The arson in a construction pit is one of a series of around 50 attacks that have occurred on critical infrastructure in and around Munich in recent years. These were initially assigned to a left-wing radical scene; Nowadays, Russian secret services are no longer ruled out as instigators. They prefer to use so-called “low-level agents”, often people from the criminal milieu, who are recruited for simple operations for comparatively little money.
