The German vigilantes who ended up on Trump's terror list

A little-known German extremist group was added to a US terror list under Trump — exposing the spread of political violence in eastern Germany.

Dear Reader,

When the US State Department added the German group Antifa Ost to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations earlier this month, it prompted groans across Germany. Washington normally reserves that designation for actors such as Hezbollah or ISIS—groups that threaten US national interests. Placing a relatively obscure group of left-wing vigilantes on the same list appeared, to many Germans, to be yet another example of the Trump administration bending a serious foreign-policy tool to serve domestic political aims.

Yet the timing is striking. The US designation came just weeks before the start of a major trial in Dresden that offers a revealing window into the fragile authority of the German state in the country’s east.

Why the US Put a German Group on Its Terror List

In the dock is Johann G., a 32-year-old accused of leading a militant cell within Antifa Ost known as the Hammerbande—the “hammer gang”—along with six accomplices. The group earned its name through a brutal modus operandi: ambushing individuals they believed belonged to the neo-Nazi scene and beating them with hammers and batons.

According to prosecutors, masked attackers would force their targets to the ground before striking them repeatedly in the head. It is only due to chance, they argue, that none of the victims died. Three defendants now face attempted murder charges.