Under the heading “Current traffic reports”, Deutsche Bahn always provides information about delays and train cancellations. However, what is there on the website on Saturday morning comes as bad news for many travelers: almost all rail traffic in the north of the country is at a standstill.
The culprit, it becomes clear during the day, is not a technical defect or a violent storm. No, the reason is sabotage. The train was the victim of a targeted attack. The company itself and a little later Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing made this public. “Cables that are essential for train traffic were willfully and deliberately severed,” said the FDP politician. Nothing worked without her.
Two central questions arise: Who was that? And how vulnerable is the critical infrastructure in this country? According to a definition by the federal government, this includes all “organizations or facilities of major importance to the state community, the failure or impairment of which would result in lasting supply bottlenecks, significant disruptions to public safety or other dramatic consequences” – in addition to energy suppliers and the health care system Rail.
When it comes to protecting these systems, there are “significant problems” that have been pointed out for a long time, says Green Party politician Konstantin von Notz, chairman of the parliamentary control committee for the secret services in the Bundestag. “Part of that is because responsibilities are unclear.” His party wants to regulate this better with a new umbrella law.
Green leader wants bill to protect infrastructure
Omid Nouripour is now calling for rapid improvements in protecting critical infrastructure. “Today’s attack on the cable connections of the railways has caused chaos at the stations, delays in the supply chains and massive uncertainty among the population,” Nouripour told the German Press Agency in Berlin on Saturday. The critical infrastructures and thus all of us are vulnerable.
“The incident clearly shows that we have to do three things,” Nouripour said. Firstly, significant investments must be made in protecting critical infrastructure, which includes, among other things, energy supply, telecommunications or transport. He referred to the agreement in the coalition agreement between the SPD, Greens and FDP for an “umbrella law” intended to regulate the protection of these structures.
“Nancy Faeser and her interior ministry have to present a draft law as soon as possible,” Nouripour demanded of the SPD politician. “Secondly, we must better equip civil defense and disaster control in order to be well prepared for dangers. Thirdly, the police and intelligence services must pay more attention to the protection of particularly endangered systems.” A joint effort and massive investments in security are urgently needed.
Speaking of critical infrastructure: less than two weeks ago, a total of four underwater leaks were found on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Large amounts of gas escaped, the EU and NATO assume sabotage, and the Kremlin said it suspected a state actor was behind it.
“The problem has intensified with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law,” says von Notz, although he points out that the background to the train sabotage is still completely unclear and must be clarified as soon as possible. “Regardless of the results, the protection of critical infrastructure against cyber threats must also be significantly expanded, which also requires sufficient financial resources.”
A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bahn told the weekly newspaper Die Zeit just a few days ago that “it is not possible to permanently protect the rail network across the board”. There have always been attacks on the railways – in a different dimension – in the past. The left-wing extremist scene often came under suspicion.
Mastermind behind sabotage still unknown
So far, however, little is known about the question of the perpetrators in the current case. “We have a crime scene in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen,” said a spokesman for the Federal Police Directorate in Berlin. “Another is in North Rhine-Westphalia.” Security circles said that fiber optic cables were deliberately damaged at the Karower Kreuz in Berlin and in Herne in North Rhine-Westphalia. The backup system also failed.
The federal police said the investigations were being carried out at full speed in all directions. “Currently, a targeted external influence on the cable of the Deutsche Bahn can be assumed,” said the spokesman. For reasons of investigation tactics, he could not provide any information on further details.
A case from 2020 caused a stir. At the time, a man had loosened more than 250 screws on the rail fastenings on the Frankfurt-Cologne ICE route. If nobody had noticed, a train would have derailed. Ultimately, thanks to attentive ICE train drivers, nobody was injured; In March 2021, the Wiesbaden district court sentenced the perpetrator to nine years and ten months in prison for attempted murder, among other things.
