The German Attorney General’s Office announced Wednesday that it had dismantled a cell of a far-right group that was planning armed attacks, including against Parliament, in an operation that resulted in the arrest of 25 people.
Prosecutors said in a statement that the detainees are suspected “of having made specific preparations to enter violently, with a small armed group, the Bundestag,” the lower house of the German parliament.
Around 3,000 officers took part in the police operation, which included searches at 130 locations in 11 of Germany’s 16 states, against the Citizens of the Reich movement.
The group, which rejects the constitution implemented after World War II and calls for the overthrow of the government, will have been formed in 2021.
Germany’s attorney general’s office said 22 Germans had been detained on suspicion of “membership of a terrorist organization.” Three other people, including a Russian, are suspected of supporting the organization.
One person was arrested in the Austrian city of Kitzbuehel and another in the Italian city of Perugia, according to the statement.
According to the German newspaper Der Spiegel, the raids included the headquarters of the KSK, Germany’s special forces unit, in the southwestern city of Calw.
The KSK has been under investigation in the past for allegedly having far-right sympathizers among its soldiers.
Members of Citizens of the Reich believe in a “range of conspiracy theories”, including “QAnon ideology”, according to German prosecutors.
QAnon is the profile name of an anonymous user who published false information on an Internet forum, in which he claimed to have access to data from United States security agencies about a group led by a corrupt elite made up of satanist pedophiles who kidnapped and sacrificed children.
This theory has many supporters in the US Republican Party.
Source: TSF
