German police raided sites linked to an anti-Semitic national socialist group that it banned Tuesday, numerous sources reported.
Nordadler, which means “Northern Eagle,” was the target of 4 raids in multiple German regions. Germany’s Interior Ministry banned the group, which operates mainly online and pursues a national socialist ideology that promotes racist and anti-Semitic views while professing an allegiance to Adolf Hitler and other Nazi figures, Deutsche Welle reported.
“Right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism have no place on the internet either,” Interior Ministry spokesman Steve Alter said on Twitter Tuesday.
Bundesinnenminister #Seehofer hat die rechtsextremistische Vereinigung „Nordadler“ verboten. Sie agiert vorwiegend im Netz. Seit den Morgenstunden laufen in vier Bundesländern polizeiliche Maßnahmen. #Rechtsextremismus und #Antisemitismus haben auch im Internet keinen Platz.
— Steve Alter (@BMISprecher) June 23, 2020
The extremist group was allegedly planning a national socialist settlement project with others sympathetic to their beliefs in rural areas. The group operated under multiple other names which referenced the Nazi Party’s parlance, like “Völkische Revolution,” “Volk” meaning people or ethnicity, according to Deutsche Welle.
The group has 30 members and had planned to purchase property in eastern Germany to set up paramilitary training similar to the mandatory service the Nazis required of young people, Deutsche Welle reported.
At least one of the group’s leaders had connections to Islamist extremists and was sentenced to a fine and community work in 2018 for aiding an ISIS sympathizer. The link between Islamists and right-wing extremists is anti-Semitism, according to German terrorism experts. (RELATED: German Police Conduct Raids Over Suspected Hate Speech Toward Slain Politician)
The ban of Nordadler makes it the 20th ban of an extremist group and the third one in 2020. Combat 18, a neo-Nazi was banned following the murder of pro-migrant German politician Walter Lubcke, who was killed by a far-right extremist in June 2019. Also banned was United German People’s and Tribes, which rejects the modern federal German state as an illegitimate creation of the World War II Allied powers.