Thousands of German police conducted early-morning raids and arrested more than two dozen right-wing domestic terrorists allegedly plotting a fascist coup to overthrow the country's government.
Authorities in Germany arrested 25 people on Wednesday who are suspected of planning to violently overthrow the government in a far-right extremist plot.
More than 3,000 police officers, including special forces, made 130 early morning searches across 11 of Germany's 16 federal states in one of the biggest counterterrorism operations in the country's history.
Suspects from the so-far unnamed group include a nobleman with a historic royal title and various armed forces veterans. It is centered on the so-called Reichsbürger, or Reich Citizens, movement which is motivated by conspiracy theories about the role and legitimacy of the modern German state.
Those arrested will appear in court Wednesday and Thursday. The homes of a further 27 people suspected of being members or supporters of the group have been searched.
“We defend ourselves with all strength against the enemies of democracy," German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wrote on Twitter.
She said the group was "driven by fantasies of violent overturn and conspiracy ideologies" and hated democracy and the state. "Further investigations will give a clear picture of how far the coup plans had progressed," she said.
The German prosecutor's office said the suspects belong to a terrorist group founded in November 2021 at the latest, which aims to overthrow the government in Berlin and install its own leaders through the "forcible elimination of the democratic constitutional state."
"The members of the association are aware that this project can only be realized through the use of military means and violence against state representatives," the prosecutor's office said in a statement early Wednesday. It said there was "the suspicion that individual members of the association have made concrete preparations to forcibly invade" the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, "with a small armed group."
This would have been a competent version of America's January 6th attack, and they supposedly had some serious hardware on them. I don't know if our good friends in Moscow were involved, but I wouldn't be surprised.
The group had planned to overthrow the German government, in part by assassinating government officials and installing “Heinrich XIII P.R.,” identified by German officials as 71-year-old Prince Heinrich XIII, a German noble of the House of Reuss. Heinrich was among those arrested.
According to a press release from the German attorney general’s office, the group was founded around November 2021. Prosecutors allege the organization adheres to the ideology of the “Reichsbürger,” or Citizens of the Reich, and is heavily influenced by QAnon. According to the statement, the group is “firmly convinced that Germany is currently governed by members of a so-called ‘deep state.’” The group also believes an “Alliance” of “technically superior secret society of governments, intelligence services and the military of various states, including the Russian Federation and the United States of America” had assets present in Germany prepared to assist in securing liberation from “deep state” forces.
The organization had reportedly engaged in paramilitary training for its members, and began acquiring arms and equipment in preparation for its coup. Several of the accused individuals were preparing to occupy government positions and head agencies following the overthrow. According to prosecutors, the group targeted members of the Bundeswehr, the German military, and the German police.
More on this as we get information, but yeah, this was a serious threat, enough so that police acted first, rather than, you know, allow the attack to happen. The Germans actually deal with their neo-Nazi politicians. Here in America they run for office as Republicans.
Maybe we should consider doing the same?
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