The German justice system announced on Wednesday that it had frustrated the attack plans of a far-right and conspiratorial group that wanted to attack the country’s democratic institutions and in particular the Parliament. At the heart of this criminal conspiracy, according to the press and the prosecution: a descendant of German nobility, former soldiers, a Russian citizen and a former deputy from the extreme right.
They are among 25 people arrested in the early morning during a large raid across the country. The Justice suspects them “of having made specific preparations to violently enter the German Bundestag,” the Berlin Chamber of Deputies, “with a small armed group,” according to a press release from the prosecution. Some 3,000 law enforcement officers were mobilized and more than 130 searches were carried out in what was described by the media as the largest police operation of its kind ever carried out in Germany.
“The Abyss of a Terrorist Threat”
Ongoing investigations lift the veil on “the abyss of a terrorist threat,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said. The dismantled cell was “driven by violent overthrow fantasies and conspiratorial ideologies,” she added.
They are cited by the court as alleged leaders: “Henri XIII PR” and “Rüdiger v. P.”. The first, identified by the German press as Prince Reuss, a descendant of a line of sovereigns of the regional state of Thuringia, is a septuagenarian businessman, 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 paratrooper battalion in the 1990s and founder of a commando Special Forces Unit (KSK), he had to leave the German army in the late 1990s after breaking weapons law.
An international investigation
Also mentioned in the prosecution’s press release is a “Vitalia B.” Russian, identified by the German press as the companion of Henry XIII. She, according to prosecutors, acted as an intermediary in an attempt to contact Russian authorities for possible support. However, the Russian embassy in Berlin, quoted by the state news agencies Ria Novosti and Tass, denied any links to “terrorist” or “illegal” organizations in Germany.
They also arrested a certain “Birgit M.-W.”. According to the German press, it would be Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a judge and former deputy of the far-right AFD party who was in the Bundestag between 2017 and 2021. In addition to the arrests, 27 other people are in the crosshairs of the investigation. depending on the floor One arrest took place in Austria and another in Italy.
The goal of the small group: “eliminate the democratic order”
Founded “no later than the end of 2021”, the small group had “the aim of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it (…)”, a project that can only be carried out “through the use of military means and violence against state representatives”, according to a press release from the Karlsruhe public prosecutor’s office, in charge of cases related to state security.
Its members are “united by a deep rejection of State institutions and the fundamental liberal and democratic order,” and determined to “participate in their elimination,” prosecutors decipher. In recent years, German authorities have ranked far-right violence as the number one threat to public order, ahead of jihadist risk.
In the spring they had dismantled another far-right group suspected of having planned attacks and the kidnapping of the Minister of Health, at the origin of the anti-Covid restriction measures. This nebula can be recognized in the German movement known as the “Reichsburger(citizens of the Reich), who have in common to reject the institutions, to refuse police orders or to pay taxes.
Of the estimated 20,000 or so militants of this ideology in Germany, a fringe has become radicalized, including Holocaust deniers and considering the use of violent action. In the case of the dismantled group, the members also referred to the theories of the QAnon movement, a far-right conspiracy group in the United States, according to the prosecution.
Source: BFM TV
