Grid Sabotage: Signed Letters Name a Gevelsberg Physician, SEK Finds His Lorry Empty, Saxony Defuses Twelve Devices
Cologne, 7 September 2026
Key points
- Confession letters posted to taz, the FAZ and police before any public disclosure are signed with the name of a 48-year-old trained physician from Gevelsberg; NRW interior minister Herbert Reul calls them genuine and describes a single perpetrator rather than a state actor
- SEK officers stormed a converted lorry at Niederzier near Düren on 5 September; the man was not inside, presumed on foot; potassium nitrate and potassium perchlorate were found at his Gevelsberg flat
- Saxony's LKA defused twelve devices near Bärwalde and Graustein on 5 September; a joint Brandenburg–NRW wanted notice with two photos followed
- New "launch devices" were found near high-voltage lines by the Weisweiler plant on 7 September; the A4 was closed both directions near Eschweiler before reopening
- A 60-strong investigation group is now screening documents for further target sites; a Sunday search of the Hambacher Forst area found nothing, a hole cut in a substation fence in Kreis Wesel overnight Sunday-Monday is unexplained
A week after the first substation devices at Turnow-Preilack and Bergheim, German police have a name attached to signed confession letters — a 48-year-old trained physician from Gevelsberg — but not the man: an SEK raid on his lorry near Düren found it empty, Saxony has separately defused twelve more devices, and fresh launch hardware turned up at the Weisweiler plant on 7 September.
The letters, sent to taz and the FAZ as well as police before the sabotage became public, carry the suspect's name and describe fossil-fuel electricity as "a crime" causing "immeasurable suffering"; Reul told WDR the material is accurate and "no fake," and that the evidence currently points to one person acting alone rather than a state actor, though he has not ruled out a group. Bild's account of a timer and copper wire at the Dormagen device has not been confirmed by police. SEK officers stormed the man's converted 2.8-tonne lorry, used as a shelter, at Niederzier on Friday evening; he was not there and is presumed to have continued on foot. Officers found potassium nitrate and potassium perchlorate at his Gevelsberg flat. Reul: "he won't get far" — and, on the signature itself, "putting a name under something doesn't necessarily mean he's the one responsible."
Saxony's LKA defused twelve devices near the substations at Bärwalde and Graustein the same evening, prompting a joint Brandenburg-NRW manhunt notice with two photographs; prosecutors in Dresden are examining whether the cases link to the NRW series. A Sunday search of the Hambacher Forst and Kerpen area produced nothing; a hole cut into a substation fence in Kreis Wesel overnight into Monday left no further evidence. On 7 September, new launch devices were found on high-voltage lines near the Weisweiler plant, closing the A4 near Eschweiler in both directions before it reopened; a 60-officer group is now working through seized documents for other planned sites.
What the letters prove is authorship of the letters; the launchers are a separate question. They named Weisweiler before the police knew of it and the flat held oxidisers, but no forensic match between the signatory and any device has been announced, and the police have not said whether Monday's Weisweiler devices match those at Bergheim or Dormagen. Reul's own caveat keeps a second question open, whether a lone actor could be a low-level agent for a foreign service; the federal prosecutor general's examination of a takeover, which would signal a state-direction reading, had produced nothing by Monday evening. Every launcher so far stood at or beside a substation, where the camera and drone-defence powers Reul and Brandenburg's Redmann are asking for would apply, as Signal No. 139 observed; the lines run on across fields where they would not.
Related · Germany's grid sabotage series
