Arson attack that left parts of German capital in darkness for days stirs outrage over infrastructure insecurity

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When Silke Peters bought a crank radio and a camping stove just after the start of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, her husband thought she was “a little crazy”. “He put me down, only half-jokingly, as a prepper,” she said, referring to the kind of person who stockpiles in case of catastrophe.

For almost four years, the items gathered dust in the cellar of the Peters’ two-room flat in Zehlendorf, a well-to-do district of Berlin. But in recent days the windup radio – with its inbuilt torch and charge point – has come into its own during Germany’s longest power cut since the second world war.