Video with overthrow fantasies: Police arrest suspicious Bundeswehr soldier

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Police forces on Odeonsplatz in Munich, where people regularly protest against corona measures

Photo: Peter Kneffel / dpa

The Munich police arrested the man who is said to have spoken in a video of the violent overthrow and the death of the federal government.

The suspect is a soldier stationed in Bad Reichenhall.

The shot with the subversive fantasies is shared on social media.

You can see a man standing on the steps in front of a party tent and speaking into a microphone.

He says "you" - apparently the government is meant - "they will be broken into pieces" and "your corpses will be scattered in the fields".

Allegedly the recording came from Rosenheim on Wednesday evening.

Accordingly, the man is said to have set an ultimatum by 4 p.m. this Thursday to restore the "constitutional order".

Otherwise you have to fight and there is a risk of bloodshed.

The Ministry of Defense responded via Twitter in the afternoon.

The video contains "threats against the rule of law that are unacceptable".

Investigations were then started.

Suspect banned from uniform and duty

According to SPIEGEL information, the man is a Bundeswehr soldier with the mountain troops stationed in Bad Reichenhall. He has been banned from uniform and duty for a long time because of comparable statements, which amounts to a quasi-suspension.

The soldier has been railing on social media for several weeks against the compulsory vaccination for soldiers in the Bundeswehr. At the end of November, the defense department introduced the so-called tolerance obligation that all soldiers must be protected against Covid. Together with several other soldiers, the now arrested soldier had already set up a group on the Telegram messenger service at the beginning of December and described the de facto vaccination requirement as a violation of the Basic Law. According to the entries in the group, some other soldiers also wrote corresponding information to their superiors.

The troops already have experience with soldiers who lean towards the extremist or "lateral thinker" milieu.

In August, for example, investigations against an ex-colonel came to light who had appeared as a helper in uniform with other supporters of the "lateral thinking" movement in the flood disaster area in the Ahr valley.

At the time, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry said that regardless of the individual case, any form of extremism damage the reputation of the Bundeswehr and has negative effects on the internal structure and thus also on the operational readiness of the troops.

The Bundeswehr distanced itself from such incidents.

In September, the Bundeswehr secret service MAD also uncovered a suspected right-wing extremist in the defense department.

And in October the Ministry took a company of the Guard Battalion out of service because a right-wing group of soldiers had formed there.

The secret services expressed concern in October about the number of extremists in uniform.

MAD President Martina Rosenberg reported on 1397 suspected extremist cases that are currently being processed in her agency.

The vast majority - around 1200 cases - are assigned to "right-wing extremism including the category of Reich citizens and self-administrators".

mgb / svs / höh / ulz