Police german dismantled this Tuesday an alleged far-right organization that, using its armed wing, planned to take over the Bundestag (Federal Parliament) and a subsequent coup, according to the Ministry of the Interior and the General Prosecutor’s Office.
A total of 25 ultra-rightists were arrested in a macro-operation spread across Germany, Austria and Italy. Of this group, 22 are suspected of having joined the aforementioned organization, ideologically linked to the “Citizens of the Reich”, a movement that rejects the legitimacy of the German federal republic based on conspiracy theories.
? The #Policeman German police arrested 25 people on Wednesday in a vast operation in #Germany against a group of #far right who was planning an armed attack on the #Bundestaglower house of #Parliamentthe Prosecutor’s Office reported. (cp). https://t.co/aj8qTnkg4L
— DW Spanish (@dw_espanol) December 7, 2022
The organization was made up of a kind of executive council and an armed wing, according to Peter Frank, the state attorney general, in the early afternoon at an appearance in Karlsruhe (south). The objective was “to destroy the constitutional democratic order in Germany through violence and military means,” Frank was quoted as saying by efe.
The council planned to take over the functions of the government after the coup. It included, among others, a former deputy from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party who was to become Justice Minister.
The armed wing of the group included at least three individuals who in the past had been members of the German armed forces (Bundeswehr), one of them a member of the Space Operations Command or KSK who had already stood out in the past for encouraging orientation far-right of numerous troops.
Frank added that part of the detainees have already gone to court and that in several cases -among them that of the alleged leader of the organization, whom he identified as Heinrich KR- provisional detention has been decreed.
According to the German media, the aforementioned ringleader is the aristocrat Henry XIII, Prince of Reuss, a businessman active in the real estate sector and known for spreading conspiracy and anti-Semitic theses, arrested this morning at his home in Frankfurt (south).
for the weekly Der Spiegel The group, which began operating about a year ago, was a diverse group in which a chef, a pilot, a master roofer, a tenor and a doctor participated, among others, and who were advised by two clairvoyants.
The prosecution has also indicated in a statement that the detainees – all of them of German nationality except for a Russian citizen – had tried to establish contacts with Russian diplomatic representations in Germany, although the Russian embassy in Berlin has denied any link with the organization.
The Minister of the Interior, the Social Democrat Nancy Faeser, celebrated the success of the macro-operation, in which 3,000 police officers participated in some 150 search operations in 11 federal states. The investigations allow a look into the “abyss” of a “terrorist threat” on the part of the Citizens of the Reich, who, according to him, are united by “hatred of democracy, our State and the people who defend our community.”
In a series of raids, police in Germany arrested at least 25 people tied to an alleged right-wing extremist plotting to storm the Parliament building, seize power and install their own government. https://t.co/rkh7qwXiDA pic.twitter.com/QeyTdncNOX
—CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) December 7, 2022
However, he stressed that it will be necessary to wait for the investigations to progress in order to determine to what extent the “violent fantasies of overthrow” of the detainees had materialized into concrete plans for the seizure of power.
The Minister of Justice, the liberal Marco Buschmann, reported for his part that the detainees were willing for them to have died in order to seize power and that they were planning an armed assault on the headquarters of the Lower House of Parliament (Bundestag). He pointed out that in this case it is not about “confusing stories” of those who want to “play important” after having consumed alcohol, but that there are very strong suspicions that the group was about to “take action with violence.”
With information from Efe and El País.
