German police saw a record number of crimes in 2021 that were politically motivated without a clear link to either the left or the right of the political spectrum.

According to security authorities, the heated social climate prompted by the coronavirus pandemic contributed to this increase, a government response to a parliamentary question from the left said.

In 2021, there were at least 21,259 politically motivated crimes without a clear link to the right or left of the political spectrum, according to the document seen by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

About 43% of the 9,603 suspects identified were already known to the police. Just under one in five of them had already attracted attention in connection with politically motivated crime.

"The high number of unattributable political crimes is frightening," said Martina Renner of the Left party. "The inability of the authorities to assign these acts to a specific (group or ideology) remains dangerous."

Most of the violent crimes were committed in Berlin and Bavaria. Those locations were the scenes of numerous coronavirus-related protests with nationwide participation.