German state security services are investigating an arson attack against an Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician’s moving business in the Saale district of Schkopau, with five out of his six trucks set completely ablaze while the remaining one was badly damaged.
The Hohenweiden moving company, owned by local AfD politician Sven Ebert, has been targeted in the past, including suspected Antifa groups that hit his company with paint attacks.
The arson attack produced a blaze so intense that the flames could be seen up to 10 kilometers away in Halle an der Saale. The resulting damage is estimated to cost several hundred thousand euros. The police are investigating a potential political motive.
Ebert has eight branches of his moving company in total in central Germany, but the targeted fleet represented nearly the company’s entire fleet at that location. The company plans to continue operations with rental vehicles.
Ebert is a member of the local AfD council in Schkopau and sits on the district council of Saalekreis.
The arson attack against an AfD politician is far from the first, with AfD politicians having their own personal vehicles targeted with arson, including directly outside their homes, on a number of occasions. AfD politicians and political supporters are also targeted more with violence than any other party in Germany, according to official interior ministry documents.
Ebert is currently the subject of a court case for allegedly attacking two young women in the spring of 2021 after the girls sprayed AfD election posters with paint. Ebert reportedly knocked a phone out of one of the girl’s hands and kicked them away from the area. A Halle district court sentenced him to six months in prison for dangerous bodily harm, but Ebert is appealing the sentence to the Naumburg Higher Regional Court