Political motivations and anger at symbols of wealth is spreading, and in Germany this looks like it might be taking the form of attacks on luxury cars.
From Bloomberg
"When Berlin resident Simone Klostermann returned from vacation and couldn’t find her Mercedes SLK, she thought it had been towed. Police told her the 35,000- euro car had been torched.
“They’d squirted something flammable into the car’s engine block in the gap between the windshield and the hood,” said Klostermann. “The engine was completely destroyed.”
The 34-year-old’s experience isn’t unique in the German capital. At least 29 vehicles were destroyed in arson attacks this year, most of them luxury cars, according to police. The number is already about 30 percent of the total for 2008. The latest to go up in flames was a Porsche, on Feb. 14, two days after a Mercedes was set alight in a public car park"
The recession is prompting anger across the world, and every country has its own hallmark. Germany, so famous for its automotive heritage and luxury products, is feeling the pinch in a very particular way.A group has already claimed responsibilty for many of the attacks, in a protest "against a protest against the world economy and rising rents.”
It seems obvious that this anger would manifest itself in some way but this seems localized in certain 'up and coming' neighbourhoods in Berlin, for now.
