Germany bans far-right extremist group 'Sturmbrigade 44'

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has banned the extremist group "Sturmbrigade 44." The announcement came after a series of police raids against group members.

Germany's Interior Ministry on Tuesday banned the extremeright group "Sturmbrigade 44," after a series of raids across three German states.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer proscribed the group, also known as "Wolfsbrigade 44," allowing a series of measures to be taken against members.

Read more: Neo-Nazi Sturmbrigade 44: How serious of a threat is it?

The classification allows officials to confiscate assets and propaganda material, with the aim of also collecting evidence on right-wing extremist structures. Raids on the properties of 13 group members took place on Tuesday morning in the states of Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and North RhineWestphalia.

"Anyone who fights against the basic values of our liberal society will feel the decisive reaction of our constitutional democracy," said a tweet from Seehofer's spokesman, Steve Alter.

The group is understood to have been in existence and operating as a fixed structure since 2016.

At the beginning of 2018, a bag of weapons and a T-shirt bearing the group's name was found on board a train. In July last year, raids were carried out against members of the group in the German states of Hesse, Lower Saxony and North RhineWestphalia and Saxony Anhalt.

The declared goal of the group, to be achieved by force, was said to be the "revival of a free fatherland" according to "Germanic moral law."

Read more: Germany charges 12 in far-right 'terror' plot: reports

The numbers 44 in the name of a neo-Nazi group stand for the letters DD, an abbreviation for "Division Dirlewanger." The SS commander Oskar Dirlewanger is noted among World War II historians as having been a particularly sadistic war criminal whose name is closely linked with some of the most notorious atrocities of the period.