Justice in Germany announced on Wednesday that it had thwarted the plans of a tiny far-right group that planned to attack the country’s democratic institutions, including the parliament.
Text: RFI / AFP
The police arrested 25 people, two of them in Austria and Italy, in a vast operation across the territory that mobilized some 3,000 officers and led to more than 130 raids.
The detainees are suspected of “having made specific preparations to enter the Bundestag violently.” [la cámara baja del parlamento] with a small armed group,” a statement from the prosecution reported.
“We suspect that an armed attack against the constitutional bodies was planned,” Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said in a message on Twitter in which he referred to “a broad anti-terrorist operation.”
According to German media, this is the largest police operation of its kind ever carried out in Germany.
In addition to the arrests, 27 other people are being investigated for suspicion of belonging to this criminal cell, the prosecutor’s office said.
German authorities have in recent years classified far-right violence as the main threat to public order, above jihadism.
In the boreal spring, they dismantled another tiny far-right group suspected of planning attacks in the country and planning the kidnapping of the Minister of Health, who implemented the anti-covid restriction measures.
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“Citizens of the Reich” harm Germany
In the spotlight is a movement called the “Reichsbürger” [Ciudadanos del Reich, en alemán]. Its members do not recognize the institutions, do not obey the police or pay taxes.
The cell, founded “at the latest by the end of 2021”, has “the objective of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it with its own form of state,” said the statement from the Karlruhe prosecutor’s office, in charge of cases that affect the state security.
The project cannot be carried out “except with the use of military means and violence against the representatives of the State,” he added.
The members of the group are “united by a deep rejection of the institutions of the State and of the fundamental liberal and democratic order of the Federal Republic of Germany, which has made them grow, over time, the decision to participate in their elimination.” by violence and embark on specific preparatory acts for this purpose,” the prosecutors said.
Germany estimates that some 20,000 people have embraced this ideology and that some of them have become radicalized. Among them are deniers and people who consider using violence.
Members of the dismantled group are also familiar with the theories of the QAnon conspiracy movement, a far-right group that originated in the United States, the prosecution added.
Attempts to contact Russia
The members of the cell “are firmly convinced that Germany is currently run by a so-called deep state,” he explained.
To achieve “liberation”, they believe that the “imminent intervention of the ‘Alliance’, a technically superior secret society that brings together the governments, intelligence services and military of different countries, including the Russian Federation and the United States” is necessary. he added.
According to prosecutors, one of the group tried to contact “representatives of the Russian Federation in Germany”.
However, the investigations carried out so far do not indicate that the Russian interlocutors have reacted to the requests.
The Russian embassy in Berlin rejected any link with this type of organization. “Russian diplomatic and consular offices in Germany have no contact with representatives of terrorist groups or any other illegal formation,” she was quoted as saying by state news agencies Ria Novosti and Tass.
The far-right network was aware that to eliminate the democratic order, “there would also be deaths”, but considered it “a necessary intermediary stage” to achieve “system change”.
According to the courts, the organization was highly structured, with a “central body” and a “military arm” in charge of purchasing equipment and training members in the use of weapons. It also had commissions for ‘justice’, ‘foreign affairs’ and ‘health’.
Among the members were ex-military.
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