Parts of Steglitz-Zehlendorf have been without power since Saturday morning. Many residents have been struggling with the cold without heating or hot water. The grid operator expects full power restoration only on Thursday afternoon, January 8, 2026. This means the outage will last at least five days. Firefighters, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), and the police are trying to manage the situation on site, but the governing mayor, Kai Wegner, was unavailable for comment for several hours. (berliner-zeitung: 04.01.26)
Attack on cable bridge affects tens of thousands – and the city appears unprepared
According to the network operator, the attack was triggered by a fire on a cable bridge over the Teltow Canal. Important lines to the Lichterfelde power plant were damaged. Initially, around 45,000 households and over 2,200 businesses were affected.
While various reports indicate that around 7,000 households and 150 commercial customers have been reconnected to the grid, the vast majority remain in a state of emergency. This is precisely where political responsibility begins, because resilience isn’t a matter of luck, but rather of redundancy and consistent protection strategies.
Crisis Management Without Leadership: Wegner Goes Under the Shrink While the District Freezes
The most striking signal didn’t come from a situation report, but from the silence at the top. The Berliner Zeitung criticizes the fact that Governing Mayor Wegner remained silent for “a full ten hours.” In a situation affecting tens of thousands, this amounts to dereliction of duty. Emergency services, such as the police, fire department, and THW (Federal Agency for Technical Relief), in particular, expect clear instructions and situation reports.
Wegner later held talks with Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Head of the Federal Chancellery Thorsten Frei. He expressed hope that Berlin would receive support from the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces), for example, with supplies and logistics. Such phone calls are useful, but they don’t replace visible crisis management on the ground, because leadership must first inform and then coordinate.
Communication from the authorities – Help is being organized, but guidance is lacking
The district opened warming centers and emergency shelters. Emergency personnel from the fire department, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), and aid organizations were on hand at information points. Nevertheless, the situation remained unclear for many because specific details regarding timeframes, priorities, and local outages often came too late or were too vague.
While the network operator cites January 8th as the target date, a multi-day outage requires frequent updates with clearly defined milestones. If people don’t know whether to stay or seek refuge elsewhere, the government loses time, and in the cold, time is crucial for people’s health.
Politics focuses on interpretation rather than action – and this backfires in everyday life
Wegner said the perpetrators were “clearly left-wing extremists,” thus setting a precedent. The police are investigating the incident as arson and are examining a letter claiming responsibility, but regardless of the motive, the core question remains: Why can a single point of attack cripple so many connections, and where are the robust protective measures?
Crisis management that labels first and explains only later comes across as PR, not administration. Citizens and businesses don’t need buzzwords, but clear instructions, reliable timelines, information points, and visible leaders who can make quick decisions.
What’s needed now: Crisis management as a duty, not a photo op
Berlin urgently needs a binding communication plan, including fixed briefings, clear maps of the affected streets, and an analog information network. When routers and mobile networks fail, the city must provide guidance through posters, loudspeaker vehicles, and local contact points – and do so consistently.
Equally important is the technical implementation, because critical cable routes must not remain single points of failure. Redundancy, physical protection, and robust emergency plans cost money, but they cost less than days without power, and therefore the Senate must structurally reorganize its crisis management. The chaos in Berlin is particularly serious, given that there was already an arson attack on the power infrastructure in the southeast (Treptow-Köpenick) in September 2025 – and yet the Senate has evidently failed to strengthen its crisis management or prevention measures and act decisively.