600 Cops Just Raided 50 Homes Across Germany Hunting Neo-Nazi Teen Gangs

In one of Germany’s largest operations against far-right extremism, over 600 police officers smashed into approximately 50 locations across 12 states on Wednesday, hunting members of two sinister neo-Nazi youth gangs that have been operating with shocking openness online.

Federal prosecutors are targeting “Jung & Stark” (JS) and “Deutsche Jugend Voran” (DJV) - organizations that openly boast hundreds of followers on Telegram, Instagram, and other social platforms. These aren’t underground cells. They’re recruiting from the shadows of mainstream social media.

The raids spanned Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, and Saxony, primarily sweeping through eastern and southern Germany. While no arrests were made during Wednesday’s operation, prosecutors have evidence these groups are systematically organizing violence through digital networks.

“Some of the accused are said to have attacked members of the left-wing scene or people they believed to be paedophiles,” federal prosecutors stated grimly. “In each case, the victims were beaten by several attackers and sustained significant injuries.”

This isn’t new violence. Last year, DJV leader Julian M, just 24 years old, was sentenced to more than three years in prison after brutally assaulting political opponents in Berlin. His crew of teenagers and young adults specifically targeted people wearing symbols associated with the political left.

What makes JS and DJV uniquely alarming is their strategy. Unlike traditional far-right groups that operated in shadows, these organizations are aggressively visible - martial arts training, public protests, coordinated beatings. Jakob Guhl from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue warns that membership skews dangerously young: teenagers and people in their early twenties.

“They are explicitly militant but not secretive,” Guhl explained to the BBC. The groups deliberately position themselves as action-oriented alternatives to mainstream far-right parties like the AfD, focusing on practical violence rather than political messaging.

Germany is deeply alarmed. Young men are increasingly being radicalized into these networks, with violence targeting left-wing activists and LGBTQ communities escalating. Since 2024, similar smaller splinter groups have erupted across eastern Germany, suggesting a disturbing trend.

Prosecutors are adamant: members openly call “for acts of violence against political opponents and against alleged paedophiles” during their gatherings. They’re recruiting the disenfranchised, the angry, the young - and weaponizing social media to do it.