AN ARMY of 30,000 “Nazi” raccoons is causing carnage across Germany – and EU red tape is torpedoing efforts to stop their population boom.

A German city on the frontline of the war has now suffered a massive blow – after plans to sterilise them were scrapped due to Eurocrat lawmakers.

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Nazi raccoons are running amok in Germany[/caption]

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EU red tape is torpedoing efforts to slow their population boom[/caption]

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A raccoon discovered in a couple’s bedroom in Ratzeburg, Schleswig-Holstein State, Germany in 2024[/caption]

The menacing raccoons are believed to have been first introduced to Germany by Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo – the Nazi’s secret police – during the 1930s.

The top Hitler ally brought them in as sport for huntsmen in German forests, and thought they could kick start a new fur industry.

But the crafty rodents slipped free in the ensuing chaos at the end of World War Two – leaving swarms of the bandit-masked raiders to spread across Europe.

Vast colonies of the bin-raiding scavengers now thrive in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy – with numbers reportedly topping two million.

Officials in Kassel, Hesse, admitted earlier this year they were losing the fight against the masked invaders.

Authorities then conjured up a radical plan to catch and sterilise the pesky creatures to slow their surge in numbers.

The plan launched at the start of August and saw 30 volunteers and 10 vets baiting the animals with marmalade sandwiches before snaring them, sterilising them and setting them free.

The goal was to cut numbers by 20 per cent over three years.

Instead it collapsed after just six raccoons went under the knife – as hunters complained the programme was illegal.

Stingy Brussels regulators ruled the mass ops counted as an animal experiment under German and EU law.

This meant the organisers needed special permits usually reserved for lab testing on animals.

Because sterilisation involves anaesthesia, pain and surgery, it fell under the same rules – and the permits had not been requested.

Outraged officials pointed out that under EU rules raccoons are an invasive species.

That means they must be reduced or eradicated, not trapped, operated on and released again.

And hunters said even neutered raccoons would keep raiding bins and killing endangered birds and amphibians.

Scientists from Goethe University Frankfurt also tore into the project, saying it was based on “false assumptions”.

They argued raccoons are not territorial, so sterilising a few will not stabilise numbers, and that hunting does not trigger a bigger population surge, as campaigners had claimed.

City official Heiko Lehmkuhl admitted: “Completely eradicating raccoons from urban areas is extremely difficult.

“Our goal can only be to keep conflicts with the animals as low as possible.”

With sterilisation off the table, residents are now being told to “raccoon-proof” their homes.

The animals, which raid bins and tear through roofs, are also blamed for wiping out toads, frogs and other endangered species.

In one notorious case a Berlin crane operator found a raccoon waiting for him 130 feet in the air in his control cabin.

Another woman in North Rhine-Westphalia discovered one perched on her living room clock after wrecking her home.

And last year, police called to a burglary found a raccoon tearing apart a bedroom.

TikTok / @d1va_anastasia

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A raccoon inside a crane in the German capital Berlin[/caption]

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A woman found raccoon in her living room in Remscheid, western Germany[/caption]