Sorry, this is no way to handle a crisis. Setting a good example? 45,000 Berlin households, 2,200 businesses without power, and the mayor is playing tennis

A crisis where the greatest danger was not being perceived as a crisis

The power outage in southwest Berlin on January 3, 2026, represents a critical case study of the economic and social consequences when critical infrastructure is disabled not only by technical defects but also by deliberate acts of sabotage. This is not a purely technical phenomenon, but rather a fundamental failure on multiple institutional levels: the physical security of infrastructure, the responsiveness of authorities, and the credibility of political leadership in crisis situations.

The event was unprecedented in its scale: 45,000 households and 2,200 commercial customers temporarily lost their electricity supply, affecting approximately 100,000 people directly or indirectly. According to the grid operator Stromnetz GmbH, the blackout was the longest in the capital's post-war history, significantly exceeding the previous September blackout of the same year, in which a roughly 60-hour outage affected 50,000 customers. The five-day duration marked a turning point in the perception of electricity infrastructure as vulnerable.

The cause was an arson attack on a cable bridge over the Teltow Canal in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district, damaging several high-voltage and medium-voltage cables leading to the Lichterfelde power plant's central control room. The fire not only destroyed the power line itself but also made quick repairs impossible, as the different cable materials required complex technical solutions. Adverse weather conditions and the ongoing forensic investigation at the scene further complicated matters.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office took over the investigation and classified the incident as suspected unconstitutional sabotage, membership in a terrorist organization, arson, and disruption of public services. A left-wing extremist group claimed responsibility for the act. This gives the incident a geopolitical and security dimension that extends beyond the mere infrastructure phenomenon.

Economic dimension: Millions in damages and systemic cascade effects

The economic impact of the power outage spanned multiple dimensions and varied dramatically in severity for different business groups.

Business associations in Berlin-Brandenburg reported damages in the millions, attributable to machine breakdowns, equipment damage, and massive revenue losses. The geographical concentration of the blackout was crucial: with 2,200 businesses affected, the southwestern Berlin area was a highly densely populated center of trade, crafts, and service companies.

Companies without emergency generators were particularly hard hit. According to a 2024 survey by the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, only seven percent of businesses nationwide have emergency generators, and only eleven percent have larger battery storage systems. This means that the vast majority of German SMEs are systemically unprepared. One-third of all businesses experience additional costs of up to €10,000 during power outages, and one in seven even incurs costs exceeding this amount.

Businesses in electricity-dependent sectors were particularly vulnerable. Food retailers and restaurants suffered from disruptions in the cold chain, resulting in the total loss of perishable goods. According to the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga), revenues plummeted because guests could not be served or accommodated. Butchers, bakeries, florists, and opticians experienced production shutdowns while fixed costs continued to accrue. For craft businesses, the outage meant a complete shutdown of up to two weeks. The Berlin Chamber of Skilled Crafts estimated that there were up to 800 craft businesses in the affected areas.

The cascading effects were considerable. Suppliers outside the affected area were unable to deliver to their customers. Logistics collapsed, and digital communication was impossible for many smaller businesses. Customer loyalty suffered significantly – many consumers moved to unaffected districts and never returned. Trust was damaged.

A key economic problem arose in the area of ​​business interruption insurance. While insurers generally offer business interruption insurance for property damage, coverage for business interruptions without prior property damage – as in this case – is extremely rare in practice. Traditional business interruption insurance requires property damage caused by an insured peril. A power outage caused by sabotage of infrastructure outside the affected business, which does not result in property damage to the business itself, is not covered by the vast majority of policies. The result: companies are left to absorb their losses.

The total damage was estimated in the millions; an exact figure was impossible in the immediate aftermath, as many businesses were only able to quantify their actual losses days later. Small businesses in particular, which could not afford expensive emergency generators – a key structural problem according to the Chamber of Skilled Crafts – experience such outages as an existential threat.

Critical infrastructure and healthcare: The vulnerability of the healthcare system

The power outage demonstrated the fundamental dependence of critical infrastructures on a stable power supply – a fact that is often theoretically acknowledged but practically under-examined.

Four hospitals were affected by the outage: the Helios Clinic Emil von Behring with over 500 beds, the Waldfriede Hospital, the Immanuel Hospital in Wannsee, and the Hubertus Protestant Hospital. While these facilities had emergency power supplies and therefore did not collapse, they operated on a limited basis, albeit with significant restrictions. Patients had to be transferred in some cases, electromedical equipment could only continue to function at emergency capacity, and planned procedures were postponed.

The more critical problem lay with care facilities. Many retirement and nursing homes are not adequately equipped with emergency power supplies. Two facilities – a Domicil home in Berlin-Zehlendorf and a shared living arrangement for people requiring care in Nikolassee – had to be evacuated. Residents, many of whom had mobility impairments, multiple illnesses, and mental health issues, had to be moved to temporary accommodations in the middle of winter. This was not only a logistical disaster but also a humanitarian burden and posed medical risks.

The psychological dimension is severe: People in need of care, often disoriented and suffering from anxiety disorders, have been removed from their familiar surroundings, far from their usual caregivers and social connections. Medical equipment, especially ventilators and dialysis machines, does not function without electricity. The loss of mobility due to elevators, heating, and lighting – all of this poses a real threat to the lives of a vulnerable population.

There was indeed a fatality. An 83-year-old woman was found severely hypothermic in her apartment by relatives. She was resuscitated in the ambulance but subsequently died. Police investigations pointed to hypothermia as a potential cause, and an autopsy was performed. Police Vice President Marco Langner confirmed this as a “very regrettable incident.” This was not an abstract risk—it was a real human tragedy.

The Berlin waterworks' water supply system had emergency generators with a 36-hour capacity and functioned largely without issue, ensuring at least partial continuity of supply. Nevertheless, this situation also demonstrates the system's high fragility. It is consistently assumed that emergency power systems will not be needed for extended periods. A prolonged outage would lead to water shortages.

Infrastructural vulnerability and inadequate protection

The Berlin power outage exposed a fundamental and long-known vulnerability: the lack of physical protection for critical power lines.

Berlin's power grid stretches over approximately 35,000 kilometers, with 99 percent running underground. This means that only about one percent of the grid is above ground and therefore vulnerable. While this may sound like a high security standard, it is precisely this one percent – ​​the aboveground lines – that often represents a critical weak point, as they cannot be replaced by alternative routes in the event of a failure. This geographical concentration is a classic security problem: a single point can render an entire urban area uncontrollable.

The German Association of Energy and Water Industries complained that electricity and gas network operators are legally obligated to present their infrastructure to the public in a virtually unobtrusive manner – through planning procedures, environmental impact assessments, and public participation, detailed maps, technical parameters, location information, pipeline and route layouts, and infrastructure structures are made publicly accessible. This means that saboteurs can find their targets with extreme ease on the internet. The police union called for more redundancies (i.e., parallel lines as backup) and video surveillance.

The current approach to security relies on traditional physical security measures: fences, surveillance systems, and access controls. Berlin experimented with electrified fences equipped with alarm systems. However, these are reactive, not preventative, measures. The point is: a determined attacker with basic technical knowledge and access to readily available materials (incendiary devices) can destroy critical infrastructure from a kilometer away. The effort is minimal, the impact maximum.

German policymakers responded with a new overarching law for critical infrastructure (KRITIS), which was passed by the Federal Cabinet in 2024. This law aims to provide a uniform framework nationwide for the non-digital protection of critical facilities. Operators of critical infrastructure are to be obligated to conduct risk analyses, develop emergency plans, perform regular black-start tests, and report incidents to federal authorities. Fines are threatened for non-compliance. While this is conceptually sound, it is insufficient. Statutory minimum standards only enforce what is cost-effective – and operators, like any rational company, will only comply with the bare minimum.

A key problem is that, compared internationally, Germany long assumed that widespread power outages were "impossible." The electricity supply in Germany was exceptionally reliable. This reliability led to complacency. Now, with two major acts of sabotage within a few months (September and January), this assumption must be radically revised: Widespread power outages are not only possible, they are repeatedly caused and are predictable.

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The crisis management failure and the loss of trust

A technical problem under normal circumstances became a legitimacy crisis for the political leadership due to a serious failure in crisis management.

The state of emergency was not declared on Saturday morning (around 6:00 a.m. in case of a power outage) or Saturday afternoon, but only on Sunday afternoon – about 36 to 37 hours later. Crisis management expert Dietrich Läpke criticized this as being too late: The declaration should have been made as early as Saturday at 12:00 or 2:00 p.m., since it was already clear at that time that the power supply could not be restored within a few hours. A central crisis management team at the highest level of the Senate should have been established earlier, with the Senator for the Interior, the Governing Mayor, and assistance from the German Armed Forces.

This procedural problem is not merely academic – it delayed the deployment of emergency generators, the provision of shelter, and communication with the population. People sat for extended periods in cold, dark apartments before help was mobilized.

Particularly egregious was a demonstrative and later documented act of dishonesty by the Governing Mayor, Kai Wegner. Over the weekend, approximately 30 hours after the power outage, he asserted: “Yesterday I was neither bored nor slacking off; instead, I was on the phone all day trying to coordinate and gather as much information as possible.” He emphasized that he had been “at home in Kladow,” “locked himself in my home office – quite literally – and then coordinated.”.

Three days later, it emerged that this account was incorrect. According to information obtained by rbb, Wegner played tennis at a facility on the Berlin city limits between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. The Senate Chancellery confirmed this. Wegner's partner, Education Senator Katharina Günther-Wünsch, was with him at the tennis match.

The explanation that Wegner had been “available at all times” exacerbated the situation. This is the classic argument used by leaders to justify their absence when the real problem is that, during a crisis, the mayor was neither visible, present, nor symbolically connected to those affected. A crisis manager must not only be functionally available but must also demonstrate personal responsibility for the crisis.

Harald Burkart, head of the Young Union Berlin, described the situation sarcastically: “The Governing Mayor simply took the crisis in stride. After all, HE still had energy… While Berlin was in a state of emergency, the Governing Mayor was on the tennis court. At the same time, he publicly declared that he had been working from home and 'not putting his feet up.' Mr. Wegner has clearly lied to the public, completely misjudged the seriousness of the situation, and abandoned the Zehlendorf district. That's not leadership; that's a denial of reality.”

Particularly striking was the statement by the deputy chairman of the German Police Union, Manuel Ostermann: “Playing tennis ‘to clear your head’ in an emergency and later boasting that you were ‘reachable’ and continued working ‘immediately afterwards’ is a slap in the face to people in need. If emergency services, hospitals, or nursing homes had acted this way, many people would have died – and employees would have been rightly dismissed without notice.”

This criticism is not trivial. It exposes the double standard: A mayor can take time off during a crisis while people sit in cold apartments without electricity or assistance. This not only creates a loss of trust but also institutional legitimacy chaos.

The SPD's lead candidate, Steffen Krach, criticized the CDU government's crisis management: "My understanding of the role of a governing mayor is that he is the chief crisis manager, holds all the strings, and sets the direction."

These events signal a loss of trust that will have repercussions longer than the power outage itself. Political scientist Anthony Downs demonstrated in his analysis of crisis communication that a breach of trust is not limited in time – its effects linger, and the deeper the breach, the more costly and long-lasting it becomes.

Public reaction and compensation logic

The city of Berlin attempted to respond quickly to the crisis by agreeing to cover hotel costs for those affected. This was a pragmatic measure, but it also led to market distortions: while those affected moved to safe hotels (even in unaffected districts), other businesses were favored – hoteliers in the city profited from the crisis, while half of the affected businesses were ruined.

The issue of compensation for businesses was far less clear. The Chamber of Skilled Crafts demanded “unbureaucratic” assistance from the Senate for affected businesses, particularly small businesses that could not afford expensive emergency generators. A key question arose: Who bears the responsibility for infrastructure damage caused by sabotage? The principle of civil liability is based on “fault”—but how can a saboteur be held accountable if they have not been identified or convicted? And which state or city assumes liability for the failure of its own security apparatus?

This was a systemic failure, not a stroke of luck. The German government knew – as is known from information on previous acts of sabotage in Germany (Nord Stream explosions in 2022, railway cable sabotage in 2022, another power outage in September 2025) – that such attacks were a real possibility. The lack of physical security was therefore a deliberate risk.

The vulnerability of German infrastructure

The Berlin power outage is not an isolated incident – ​​it is an indicator of a broad structural vulnerability of the German infrastructure system.

Since the explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines (2022), the arson attacks on Deutsche Bahn's railway communication cables (2022), and several arson attacks on power pylons (September 2025 in Berlin and January 2026), a clear pattern has emerged: Critical infrastructure is vulnerable and is being deliberately targeted. The attackers are neither technologically superior nor financially unlimited – they are relatively simply motivated saboteurs, extremists, or activists who achieve maximum economic and social disruption with minimal resources (incendiary materials, a little technical knowledge).

The vulnerability is structural in nature. The largest grid operators – 50Hertz for eastern Germany – have pointed out that during regulatory procedures and environmental impact assessments, data on line routes, locations, and technical parameters are made public – virtually free of charge. This is an information competition that security is losing: Saboteurs only need to study the open data to identify their attack vectors.

A systemic risk lies in the centralization of power distribution: many large cities depend on a few critical nodes. If a cable bridge fails, alternative lines cannot immediately take over because they don't exist. While building redundancies – i.e., parallel power lines – would increase safety, it would also require significant additional investment.

Macroeconomic and societal consequences

The macroeconomic effects of a five-day power outage extend beyond the direct production losses.

Directly calculable damage: Approximately 2,200 businesses were affected. Assuming average daily revenues per business in the service and retail sectors of roughly €2,000 to €3,000, multiplied by five days, this results in lost revenue of €22 to €33 million from direct business interruption alone. Business associations anticipated losses in the millions – and with good reason.

Indirect damage: Supply chain disruptions also affected companies outside the blackout area. Suppliers were unable to deliver, customers could not pick up goods, and logistics hubs failed. Service provision – for example, in IT, consulting, and marketing – was interrupted.

Reputational damage: Many consumers and B2B customers who were forced to switch to other districts during the power outage did not return to their original providers. This is a long-term effect that will manifest itself in lower market shares in the coming months and years.

Loss of trust in the administration: The mayor's crisis management failure discussed above is creating long-term losses of trust in the administration and government. This reduces investment and consumer confidence.

Inflation and price stability: The blackout led to local price increases for emergency shelter, food, and other crisis supplies. This is not systemic inflation, but it shows how local supply disruptions can quickly lead to price competition and market destabilization.

Insurance market inefficiencies and gaps in protection mechanisms

A key economic problem emerged in the insurance architecture: The business interruption insurance market is virtually free of coverage for power outages without prior property damage.

Traditionally, business interruption insurance covers financial losses incurred by a company due to a business interruption – but only if physical damage caused the outage. A simple power outage that does not cause any physical damage to the business itself is often not covered. The consequential damage clause covers supply chain disruptions only under specific conditions.

This means that the insurance market is failing precisely at the type of risk that has now proven to be real – widespread power outages caused not by damage to individual businesses, but by infrastructure sabotage. This creates a huge gap in coverage for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Jörg Asmussen, CEO of the German Insurance Association, confirmed that “insurance covers many damages, but not all” – and this seems to be a dualistic statement that actually means: The large, systemic risks are uninsured.

This has long-term implications: Companies will no longer invest in critical infrastructure sectors because the risk is uninsured. This reduces economic activity and leads to a shift of capital to safer regions.

External security threat and threat escalation

A fundamental problem lies in the geopolitical dimension. The Berlin power outage was highly likely the work of domestic left-wing extremists – not a foreign state. But the technical vulnerability of infrastructure is universal. A state like Russia or China could cause massive disruption with far less effort than a military attack.

This reveals a strategic failure of German security policy: The country invests in the military and armaments, but not in strengthening the infrastructure used by millions of people every day. A cyberattack or physical sabotage of power grids, if coordinated with other critical systems – water, gas, telecommunications – could lead to cascading system failures.

Johannes Rundfeldt of the AG KRITIS stated: “The physical security of our critical infrastructure has hardly improved in recent decades despite various incidents of disruption and sabotage.”

Long-term lessons and unresolved problems

Several unresolved problems arise from this event:

• First: The question of responsibility. Who is liable for a power outage caused by sabotage? The grid operator? The state? The insurance industry? This is legally and economically unresolved and will lead to legal disputes.
• Secondly: The question of prevention versus reaction. The state invests more in disaster management (fire department, THW, rescue services) than in prevention. One euro invested in infrastructure strengthening would probably be ten times more effective than one euro invested in emergency management after a blackout.
• Thirdly: The question of decentralization. Berlin's electricity supply is too centralized in a few critical areas. A more decentralized electricity distribution with greater redundancy would reduce vulnerability – but would require massive restructuring.
• Fourth: The question of transparency versus security. Public data on infrastructure locations poses a security risk – but is also a requirement of democracy and the rule of law. How do we balance this?
• Fifth: The question of the government's credibility. The loss of confidence caused by the mayor will not be compensated for by quick fixes. This poses a long-term economic risk for Berlin as a business location.

The Berlin power outage of January 2026 is not an isolated technical malfunction, but a textbook example of structural vulnerability, institutional failure, and economic exposure. The immediate costs—estimated in the millions—are significant, but the long-term costs are potentially higher: loss of trust, reduced private and public investment, and legal uncertainty.

What is particularly alarming is that this event is repeatable. The conditions have not changed significantly. A second or third attack is likely. This means that the Berlin power outage is not the event itself – it is the beginning of a series. German authorities and businesses are confronted with the constant reality of sabotage.

The political responses – a new overarching law for critical infrastructure, demands for greater redundancies – are necessary, but will prove insufficient unless investments in physical security are massively increased simultaneously. The problem is not conceptual – it is a question of money and political will. And both appear to be limited.

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