German police raid neo-Nazis

BERLIN

German police commenced a crackdown on neo-Nazi cells yesterday, searching homes and clubhouses of suspects in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia amid new prohibitions against three such organizations, the Associated Press reported.

The dapd news organization reported yesterday that 120 buildings were searched by more than 900 police officers in the raids in Dortmund, Aachen, Düren and Heinsberg.

Dortmund police spokesman Wolfgang Wieland told n-tv that authorities found far-right propaganda material, spray paint and other items in the raids, which were conducted to collect evidence after the state Interior Ministry banned the three neo-Nazi organizations located around the western German city of Aachen, the Ruhr District city of Dortmund and North Rhine-Wesphalia’s northeastern city of Hamm, according to Deutsche Welle.

State Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger said the crackdown had “ripped a big hole in the neo-Nazi network.”
The state has seen a rise in far-right crimes this year and had already conducted widespread raids in April and May.