In a landmark ruling issued Wednesday, a Hamburg court has handed down prison sentences to eight individuals linked to the far-right extremist terror network “Last Defense Wave,” convicting the group on charges spanning attempted murder, arson, aggravated assault, and participation in a banned terrorist organization. The Hanseatic Higher Regional Court’s verdict concluded that the eight defendants — seven active members and one supporter — had orchestrated multiple violent attacks targeting refugee accommodation and left-wing political hubs across eastern Germany, while also engaging in a violent vigilante practice they called “pedo-hunting,” the unauthorised hunting of people they falsely accused of being child predators.
All of the offenders were aged between 14 and 21 at the time the crimes were committed, so their trials proceeded under Germany’s juvenile justice framework. Sentences range from 18 months to five years of imprisonment. German national news agency dpa confirmed that the youngest defendant’s 18-month sentence has been suspended, and all Wednesday rulings remain open to appeal, per German legal procedure.
Court documents and the official indictment lay out a string of planned and carried out attacks dating to early 2024. In January 2024, two group members attempted to ignite a blaze at an asylum seeker shelter in Schmölln, a town in the eastern state of Thuringia, using pyrotechnic devices. The attempt failed to trigger a large fire, but the attackers defaced the building’s exterior with swastikas and anti-immigrant slogans reading “foreigners out.”
That October, the group carried out a successful arson attack on a cultural center in Altdöbern, located in the neighboring state of Brandenburg. The indictment notes that no occupants were injured in the attack only by pure chance; the entire structure was completely destroyed by the spreading fire. Three additional members had also finalized plans to launch an arson attack on a second asylum shelter in Senftenberg, Brandenburg, but that plot was derailed before it could be executed after a journalism team tipped off law enforcement to the plan.
The conviction marks the latest development in a broader crackdown on the extremist network: in June of this year, two more teenage suspects were taken into custody in Thuringia on charges of belonging to “Last Defense Wave,” according to dpa’s reporting.