German police seize 33,000 recordings in neo-Nazi music raids

German police seized around 33,000 audio recordings, including CDs, vinyl records and cassettes, during a large-scale operation targeting Nazi music across several states, authorities said on Friday, with raids also carried out abroad.

More than 20,000 of them were found during Wednesday's searches of the homes of the four main suspects, prosecutors and police in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern said in a statement.

Around 130 storage devices - including hard drives, mobile phones and USB sticks - were also seized, along with assets worth around €2 million ($2.3 million). Around €11,000 of that was found in cash on the four main suspects.

The operation focused on music that spreads what investigators described as a "National Socialist, anti-Semitic, racist and dehumanizing ideology."

According to Wednesday's joint statement, the four main suspects, aged 55, 52, 48 and 43, are alleged to have joined forces no later than 2020 to produce and market CDs and vinyl records of this nature. They are accused of being members of a far-right criminal organization.

Manufacturers in Estonia, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic, where the recordings are believed to have been produced, were also searched, the authorities said. The companies concerned were unaware of the nature of the music they were producing, the statement added.

Searches were also carried out across Germany targeting eight further suspects in connection with hate speech offences related to the recordings. 

The prosecutors and police said that the searches were carried out to clarify existing grounds for suspicion and that no arrests were made.