One or more unknown persons set fire to a bench in front of the constituency office of Green Minister Paus in Berlin. Employees can extinguish the flames. A neo-Nazi graffiti is emblazoned next to the scene of the fire. The politician is shocked but combative.
An arson attack has been carried out on the constituency office of Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus in Berlin-Charlottenburg. In the immediate vicinity, the abbreviation NSU was written on a construction site protection on the house, said a police spokeswoman. The police are checking whether the graffiti is new, whether it is related to the arson attack and whether the perpetrator is from the right-wing extremist spectrum. Nobody got hurt.
NSU is the abbreviation for the terrorist group "National Socialist Underground", which murdered eight small business owners of Turkish origin and one with Greek origin, as well as a German policewoman. According to the police, an employee of the Greens office in Windscheidstrasse testified that the abbreviation had not previously been there.
According to the police, the fire was noticed by the Greens employee, who was still working in the office, on Wednesday night around 0.30 a.m. A wooden bench caught fire in front of the house, and the flames also attacked the window frame of the shop window. The employee, a passer-by and later the fire brigade extinguished the fire. The state security agency responsible for politically motivated crimes in the Berlin State Criminal Police Office (LKA) is investigating.
Minister Paus tweeted photos and wrote: "Last night there was an arson attack on the joint office of @Gruene_CW and me. State security is investigating. The shock is deep, but we will not be intimidated!" The photos show a charred wooden pallet bench and the burnt window.
Party colleague and Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt wrote: "That's terrible, dear Lisa. Thank God nothing happened to anyone." The Berlin Greens and many Berlin state politicians declared their solidarity. The Greens in Berlin's Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district, who also use the office, said: "The act goes beyond party lines and should be condemned as an attack on our democratic system."
