The car belonging to Julian Reichelt, editor-in-chief of NIUS, was set alight on Thursday night in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin.
The leading figure at Germany’s largest opposition media outlet has no doubt that the arson attack was targeted and politically motivated, as he himself told his own newspaper.
Reichelt described the attack that morning as a “shock”. The incident is said to have taken place at around 3.00 am. “This was a professionally executed attack.” “The classic Antifa trick” involving “a flammable substance on the tyres” is said to have been used. Not even a child seat in the front passenger seat deterred the perpetrators.
Reichelt was editor-in-chief of Germany’s largest newspaper, Bild, before joining *NIUS* following a dispute with the Springer Group, during which he admitted to having blurred the lines between his private and professional relationships. The editorial line can be described as right-wing populist and devotes considerable space to controversial topics such as mass immigration and its consequences.
The 46-year-old believes that the arson attack is a message to the free media:
“It is an attempt to intimidate new free media outlets that oppose this left-wing extremism.” According to Reichelt, the perpetrators were likely keeping a close watch to identify which car was his. And they deliberately waited for the right moment to set the car alight.
The NIUS editor says the newspaper will not be intimidated, but will carry on as it sees fit. He accuses the left of having created a social climate that incites actions such as the one of which he himself has now fallen victim.
“This is the face of left-wing extremism, which will soon be sitting in Berlin’s Red Town Hall. These are the ideological allies of Elif Eralp.” “These are the methods they resort to when anyone dares to criticise them,” said Reichelt.
Reichelt pointed to calls for violence that were distributed on leaflets in Kreuzberg, but also in the newspaper *Taz*. Reichelt also highlighted the responsibility of the Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein, Daniel Günther, who had described NIUS and other independent media outlets as ‘enemies of democracy’, which he would have preferred to see banned.
“This is the state of freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Germany in 2026,” comments the prominent German lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel to NIUS.
Journalist Alan Posener expresses solidarity with Reichelt in a commentary on the case in Die Welt, in which he points out that several AfD politicians have been subjected to the same treatment for years.
