The German police have arrested 25 members of a small group of extreme right and sympathizers of conspiracy theories that, according to German media, were preparing some kind of coup or armed action this Wednesday morning.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office has confirmed in a statement that the raid, in which 3,000 agents participated and included the exhaustive search of houses, was carried out in eleven of the 16 länder (federated states) that Germany has.
In total, there are 25 suspects, including former soldiers, politicians from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and a prince.
They are mostly members of the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich), a movement of Germans who do not abide by the German Constitution or recognize the Federal Republic and reject its legal system; and supporters of so-called lateral thinking (Querdenken), who believe in conspiracy theories.
Among the 25 detainees there are men and women, and they were arrested on suspicion of "membership of a terrorist organization". The operation was ordered by the Federal Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Criminal Investigation Office (BKA).
Prosecutors said the alleged ringleaders, identified only as Heinrich XIII P.R. and Rüdiger V.P., are accused of founding last year a “terrorist organization whose aim was to overthrow the existing state order in Germany and replace it with their own form of state, which It was already in the process of founding”.
The suspects knew their goal could only be achieved by military means and force, prosecutors said. They are alleged to have believed in a “conglomerate of conspiracy theories consisting of narratives from so-called Citizens of the Reich, as well as QAnon ideology,” according to a statement from prosecutors. Among them is a Russian citizen.
The Der Spiegel weekly reported that the locations searched include the headquarters of Germany's special forces unit KSK in the southwestern city of Calw. The unit has already been inspected in the past for the alleged involvement of some soldiers in the extreme right. Federal prosecutors declined to confirm whether the barracks were searched. Along with the arrests in Germany, mostly in the Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Saxony and Thuringia länder, one person was arrested in the Austrian city of Kitzbühel and another in Perugia (Italy).
