A Hamburg court has sentenced seven members and one supporter of a far-right militant group to prison terms of up to five years, following a campaign of arson and bomb attacks on refugee shelters and left-wing facilities.

The Hanseatic Higher Regional Court convicted the defendants of membership of a terrorist organisation, attempted murder, arson and aggravated assault. Prosecutors had also charged the group with conspiracy to commit murder when the trial opened.

The group, which called itself “Last Wave of Defence,” saw its members as the final line of defence for the German nation, according to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Create chaos

The presiding judge said the defendants, who ranged from mid-teens to early twenties at the time of the offences, had absorbed far-right ideology and sought to “create chaos.”

Theor identities withheld in line with German privacy rules, one defendant was just 15 years old when the offences began; three others were 16.

Prosecutors said the group carried out arson and bomb attacks on asylum seeker shelters and buildings linked to left-wing organisations.

In October 2024, members set fire to a cultural centre in the eastern town of Altdöbern. In January 2025, they threw fireworks into a refugee shelter in Schmölln and left Nazi symbols at the scene. No one was injured in either attack, which prosecutors said was purely by chance.

Three suspects were already in custody before police carried out raids across the country in May last year, arresting five more alleged members.

Behind closed doors

The investigation continued to expand after the trial began: a further raid in March targeted ten additional suspects, and two more teenagers were detained in Thuringia in June.

The sentences, ranging from two years and four months to five years, were handed down under German juvenile law. Because several defendants were minors, most of the trial was held behind closed doors.