Three vandals on the run: Political graffiti in Berlin!

Three vandals on the run: Political graffiti in Berlin!

On November 15, 2025, there was an incident involving property damage in Berlin-Mitte at around 5:15 p.m. The crime scene was in front of a party headquarters on Klingelhöferstrasse. According to berlin.de, a witness observed three people spraying the flagpole with spray paint. The witness immediately alerted the police.

The alerted emergency services from the 21st operational unit arrived at the scene and immediately began arresting the suspects. These are 19, 27 and 40 years old. When spoken to, the suspects fled, but the police were able to quickly pursue and arrest them. The 40-year-old man fell while escaping and suffered a head injury. He resisted arrest, resulting in a police officer's knee and wrist injury.

Consequences of the incident

The spray paint cans were confiscated from the suspects. The 19-year-old and 27-year-old were taken to a nearby police post for police action and were later released, while the 40-year-old was taken to hospital to be treated for his injury. The investigation into this incident is the responsibility of the State Police of the Berlin State Criminal Police Office.

This incident is not isolated. There have been similar cases of vandalism with a political background in the past. For example, polizei-meldeen.com reported on a similar incident in December 2022, in which masked people sprayed lettering on a party building in Kreuzberg. Several suspects were arrested, but they did not comment on their actions.

Growing vandalism problem in Berlin

Current events are part of a larger problem in Berlin. According to jan-lehmann.de, the Senate was asked to provide a compilation of all recorded property damage and vehicle fires since 2017. Interestingly, the overall number of property damages to public facilities and monuments fell by almost 35% from 2017 to 2024. In contrast, the city has seen a steady increase in property damage and motor vehicle arson.

The number of cases of property damage to motor vehicles increased from 12,429 in 2017 to over 14,000 in 2024, an increase of 13%. At the same time, the number of motor vehicle arsons increased from 273 in 2017 to 486 in 2024. This represents an alarming increase that is pushing authorities to take measures such as proposing the creation of a specialized arson investigation team.