A vast operation by the German police within far-right and conspiratorial groups led this Wednesday morning to the dismantling of a cell planning armed attacks.
The latter were aimed in particular at the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, the prosecution said.
A large dragnet resulted in the arrest of 25 people across the country.
They are particularly suspected "of having made concrete preparations to violently enter the German Bundestag", the chamber of deputies in Berlin, "with a small armed group", the prosecutors said in a press release.
"We suspect that an armed attack against the constitutional bodies was planned", commented the Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann, in a message on Twitter evoking "a large anti-terrorist operation".
Demokratie ist wehrhaft: Seit heute Morgen findet ein großer Anti-Terror-Einsatz statt.
Der Generalbundesanwalt ermittelt gegen ein mutmaßliches Terror-Netzwerk aus dem Reichsbürger-Milieu.
Es besteht der Verdacht, dass ein bewaffneter Überfall auf Verfassungsorgane geplant war.
— Marco Buschmann (@MarcoBuschmann) December 7, 2022
Some 3,000 law enforcement personnel were mobilized across Germany and more than 130 raids were carried out in what media described as the largest such police operation ever in Germany.
In addition to the arrests, 27 other people are targeted by the investigation and suspected of belonging to the criminal cell, according to the prosecution.
One arrest took place in Austria and another in Italy.
Contacts with Russia
Cited by the courts as presumed leaders: “Henri XIII PR” and “Rüdiger v.
P.”.
The first, identified by the German press as Prince Reuss, descendant of a line of sovereigns of the regional state of Thuringia (east), is a septuagenarian entrepreneur, with whom part of his family has distanced himself.
Arrested in Frankfurt, he also owned a castle near Bad Lobenstein, in the center of the country, which was raided.
The second is, according to the media, a former lieutenant colonel of the Bundeswehr.
Commander of a parachute battalion in the 1990s and founder of a commando Special Forces Unit (KSK), he had to leave the German army at the end of the 1990s after having broken the law on weapons.
A Russian “Vitalia B.” is also mentioned in the press release from the prosecution, identified by the German press as the companion of Henry XIII.
She, according to prosecutors, acted as an intermediary in an attempt to contact the Russian authorities for possible support.
However, the Russian embassy in Berlin, quoted by the state news agencies Ria Novosti and Tass, denied any link with "terrorist" or "illegal" organizations in Germany.
Also arrested a certain “Birgit M.-W.
".
According to the German press, it would be Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, judge and former deputy of the far-right AFD party who sat in the Bundestag between 2017 and 2021.
A “profound rejection of institutions”
Founded “at the latest at the end of 2021”, the small group had “the objective of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it with a form of clean state”, a project that can only be carried out “by the 'use of military means and violence against state officials', according to the press release from the Karlsruhe public prosecutor's office, in charge of cases concerning state security.
Its members are "united by a profound rejection of state institutions and of the liberal and democratic basic order of the Federal Republic of Germany, which has grown in them, over time, the decision to participate in their elimination by violence and to embark on concrete preparatory acts for this purpose”, decipher the prosecutors.
In recent years, the German authorities have ranked far-right violence as the number one threat to public order, ahead of the jihadist risk.
In the spring, they had dismantled another far-right group suspected of having planned attacks in the country and the kidnapping of the Minister of Health, at the origin of the anti-Covid restriction measures.
"Citizens of the Reich"
In particular, a German movement known as the “Reichsbürger” (citizens of the Reich) is targeted, who have the common point of rejecting the state order.
They don't recognize its institutions, obey the police, pay taxes, or reinvent their vehicle license plates.
Of the estimated 20,000 militants of this ideology in Germany, a fringe has become radicalized, including Holocaust deniers and considering recourse to violent action.
In the case of the dismantled group, the members also referred to the theories of the QAnon movement, a far-right conspiratorial group from the United States, according to the prosecution.
former soldiers
In its plan to eliminate the democratic order, this network was "aware that there will also be deaths", "an intermediate step deemed necessary" to achieve "system change".
Justice says it has identified a very structured and hierarchical organization composed of a "central body" and a "military arm" responsible for the purchase of equipment for training in weapons of recruitment, but also of "Justice “, “Foreign Affairs” or “Health”.
Former soldiers are among the protagonists.
Most recently, in October, members of the “military arm” scouted Bundeswehr barracks to inspect their ability to accommodate their own troops after their “coup”.