The Bochum State Security is investigating the crime scene in Herne, a city in NRW. Since Berlin was also a sabotage site, the investigators from the Ruhr region are in close exchange with colleagues from the State Criminal Police Office (Landeskriminalamt) in the capital. The State Security Office is also investigating there.

Berlin's Senator of the Interior, Iris Spranger (SPD), does not rule out the possibility that the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt - BKA) and the Federal Prosecutor General will also deal with the matter. But Berlin does not control that, it would be decided in cooperation with the Berlin State Criminal Police Office (Berliner Landeskriminalamt - LKA).

On Saturday morning, essential cables for the railroad's train radio communication system were damaged in Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia; as a result, rail traffic in large parts of northern Germany was at a standstill for hours. Countless travelers were stranded at train stations.

Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) and the Deutsche Bahn spoke of sabotage. Police said on Monday that several cables had been cut at the tracks in the area of Herne station in NRW. From security circles, it was said that in both cases, so-called fiber optic cables had been intentionally damaged. The backup system had also failed as a result.

Much is still unclear in this complex case. According to estimates from security circles, the attack suggests insider knowledge of the railroad. The fact that no confession has been made speaks against perpetrators from the left-wing extremist scene, to whom attacks against the railroads have been attributed in the past.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Monday afternoon in Nuremberg that she could not yet say anything about the background. Since the start of the Ukraine war and before the "alleged attack," she said, one of the ministry's focuses has been on critical infrastructure. "You can never monitor everything. That will never be possible in a free state governed by the rule of law, but we have a very high focus on critical infrastructure and especially on transport," the SPD politician said when asked how secure Germany's infrastructure was.

The "Bild" newspaper reported on Sunday that the BKA, in an internal assessment, also considered state sabotage to be conceivable. However, the BKA and the Federal Ministry of the Interior did not comment on the report when asked.

Security expert Peter Neumann also believes an attack by Russia is possible. "Russia has an interest in causing panic in Europe and signaling that it can cripple life quite violently," the scientist told broadcaster RTL. However, he said, there is of course no clear evidence. "At the moment, it's still a theory.”

From Deutsche Bahn's point of view, at least their emergency plans "worked optimally." "Our teams restored radio traffic just three hours after the outage," said long-distance travel member of the board Michael Peterson in Berlin on Monday. "That's really very, very good, and they deserve a big thank you for that." Trains could have been running again as early as Saturday morning, he said. However, the effects in the form of delays and cancellations were felt throughout the long-distance network for much longer.

According to a report, there are considerations within the SPD to give the federal police more powers. "The threat level is high. This has been made very clear once again by the acts of sabotage against our infrastructure," deputy parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese told the Rheinische Post newspaper. It is important "that our security authorities have the necessary investigative powers at their disposal. In particular, we must now very quickly get a modern Federal Police Act underway in the Bundestag." The last reform, he said, was from 1994, and much has changed since then. In 2021, a reform of the Federal Police Act failed in the Bundesrat.

(Orig. text: dpa; Translation: ck)