Recruited at 15 in Group Chats, a Teenage Neo-Nazi Cell Is Sentenced in Hamburg
On Aug. 5, 2026, a Hamburg court sentenced eight young members and supporters of “Last Defense Wave,” a far-right group German prosecutors treated as a terrorist organization, over a campaign of arson and violence against asylum seekers. Investigators say the cell was built by minors online, set a joining age of 15 and drew recruits through chat apps.
A court in Hamburg on Aug. 5, 2026, sentenced eight young members and supporters of “Last Defense Wave,” a far-right network that German authorities classified as a terrorist organization, over a campaign of arson and violence aimed at asylum seekers and the political left, The Washington Post reported. The defendants, who were between 14 and 21 years old when the offenses took place, were convicted of charges including attempted murder, arson and aggravated assault and were tried under Germany’s juvenile criminal law, ABC News reported.
A cell built in group chats
Investigators say Last Defense Wave was founded by minors in the spring of 2024 and organized itself largely online. The group set a minimum joining age of 15 and sought new members through WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and TikTok, NBC News reported. German investigators said they identified more than 70 chat groups linked to the network across the country, NBC News reported. Members cast themselves as defenders of the “German nation” and, prosecutors said, aimed to destabilize the country’s democratic order through attacks on migrants and political opponents, Al Jazeera reported.
Fireworks through a shelter window
The violence prosecutors described was not abstract. Two people tied to the network smashed a window of an asylum-seekers’ shelter and hurled fireworks inside — which did not ignite — in Schmölln, in the eastern state of Thuringia, in January, Al Jazeera reported. Three members had separately planned to attack another asylum shelter and had obtained two firework “bombs” before earlier arrests stopped them, Al Jazeera reported. At trial, the court found that the defendants had planned and carried out arson and bomb attacks on asylum-seeker shelters and sites on the political left, The Washington Post reported.
Prison terms of up to five years
Seven of the eight defendants were convicted as members of the group and one as a supporter, and the prison terms handed down ranged from about a year and a half to five years, The Washington Post reported. Because of the defendants’ ages, the case was heard under juvenile law, ABC News reported. The convictions covered not only the specific attacks but membership in, or support for, a terrorist organization, the Post reported.
‘Minors when the terrorist group was founded’
When the network was broken up, the ages of those involved drew particular alarm. Germany’s justice minister, Stefanie Hubig, said in a statement that what was “particularly shocking is that all those arrested today are said to have been minors when the terrorist group was founded,” Al Jazeera reported. Federal prosecutors said the group sought to bring about a collapse of Germany’s democratic system through violence against migrants and political opponents, NBC News reported. The case has become a marker in Germany of how minors can be drawn into organized extremism through the same platforms they use to socialize, a concern investigators raised when the cell was dismantled, Al Jazeera reported.