Arson on the Hohenmölsen coal freight line (Saxony-Anhalt)

On the night of Friday to Saturday, 1-2 August 2025, unknown persons deliberately set fire to lineside cables on a railway through Webau, a locality of Hohenmölsen in the Burgenlandkreis district of Saxony-Anhalt. According to Halle police statements relayed by radio SAW and Bahnblogstelle, both data and power cables were ignited, with a burned area of roughly 100 by 40 centimetres. State security investigators (Staatsschutz) took over the case, treating it as politically motivated arson.

The targeted route is a non-electrified goods line used for coal transport, part of the Großkorbetha-Deuben corridor that serves MIBRAG lignite traffic in the region. Deutsche Bahn told The Local that goods trains, notably coal services, use the line, and that early findings indicated the blaze was a criminal fire. Because the line is freight-only with no scheduled passenger service, DB said passenger traffic was not affected.

After forensic work at the scene, police released the track and the function of an affected level-crossing system was temporarily restored. Deutsche Bahn described the incident as the third deliberate rail fire in two days, following two cable arson attacks on the Düsseldorf-Duisburg main line in North Rhine-Westphalia on the Thursday and Friday. As of early August, no claim of responsibility had surfaced specifically for the Saxony-Anhalt fire.

The Hohenmölsen fire is recorded as suspected arson under Staatsschutz investigation. It coincided with near-simultaneous arson on the Düsseldorf-Duisburg line, and Deutsche Bahn counted all three as one wave, but officials said any link between the North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt incidents remained unclear. A far-left group, the Kommando Angry Birds, claimed the NRW attack on Indymedia; reporting indicates that claim did not explicitly cover the Hohenmölsen fire, and no separate claim emerged. Indicators point to domestic far-left extremism rather than any foreign state, but attribution for this specific fire is unconfirmed and may change as investigators report.