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Germany’s chief federal prosecutor has announced the arrest of a German-Polish national with alleged neo-Nazi ties who is accused of calling on the darknet for the assassination of top politicians and seeking donations for bounties on their heads.
More than 20 people were on the list of potential targets, including former chancellors Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz as well as judges and ex-government ministers, local media reported.
On his platform Assassination Politics, the 49-year-old suspect, identified only as Martin S, is alleged to have published personal data of prominent people as well as “charge sheets” and “death sentences”.
The suspect, who was arrested late on Monday in the western city of Dortmund, where he lives with his family, faces charges including financing terrorism, inciting others to commit a serious act of violence that endangers the state and committing the dangerous dissemination of personal data.
“Since at least June 2025, Martin S has called for attacks on named politicians, public officials and public figures in Germany on the darknet,” the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“To this end, he anonymously operates a platform on which he publishes, among other things, lists of names, death sentences pronounced by himself and instructions for building explosive devices. He also solicits donations in cryptocurrency, which are then offered as ‘bounties’ for the killing of the targeted individuals.”
The Assassination Politics platform allegedly also included content described as rightwing extremist, racist and espousing conspiracy theories.
It was not immediately clear whether any donations were collected via Martin S’s platform but the case was considered serious enough that the federal prosecutor’s office, which investigates terrorism cases and other serious threats to state security, took over.
The suspect, who reportedly works as a software developer, is believed to have acted alone.
The interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, said the investigation began in June on a tip from the domestic intelligence service.
Local media said many of the intended targets had been selected because of their role in public measures to control the spread of Covid during the pandemic.
The Berlin daily Die Tageszeitung said Martin S had come to the attention of authorities for actions during protests held by an extreme fringe of the anti-Covid restrictions movement and had participated in events held by the rightwing extremist party Die Heimat (The Homeland).
Der Spiegel reported that Martin S had taken part in a memorial march in 2021 for the Dortmund neo-Nazi leader Siegfried Borchardt, known as SS-Siggi, and had warned on social media that Europe was on its way to becoming an Islamist caliphate.
Martin S may have found inspiration for his platform’s name in an essay called “Assassination Politics” from the mid-1990s by a US crypto-anarchist known as Jim Bell.
In it, Bell called for the hypothetical creation of a website ordering the murder of purportedly corrupt politicians and civil servants by recruits found online, who would be paid by anonymous sponsors.
German intelligence and security services have in recent years sought to stamp out a far-right conspiracy theorist movement known as the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich).
Police in nationwide raids in 2022 foiled what investigators said was an alleged plot to overthrow the state, attack parliament and assassinate political leaders, led by a pseudo-aristocratic businessman.
The movement, which rejects the legitimacy of the modern German republic, was long dismissed as a group of malcontents and oddballs, but is now considered a serious security threat by authorities.
