Germany arrests 25 accused of plotting coup
(BBC) Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids across Germany on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.
The group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to have prepared for a “Day X” to storm the Reichstag parliament building and seize power.
A minor aristocrat named as Prince Heinrich XIII, 71, is alleged to have been central to their plans.
According to federal prosecutors, he is one of two alleged ringleaders among those arrested across 11 German states.
The plotters are said to include members of the extremist Reichsbürger [Citizens of the Reich] movement, which has long been in the sights of German police over violent attacks and racist conspiracy theories. They also refuse to recognise the modern German state.
Other suspects came from the QAnon movement who believe their country is in the hands of a mythical “deep state” involving secret powers pulling the political strings.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser assured Germans that authorities would respond with the full force of the law “against the enemies of democracy”.
An estimated 50 men and women are alleged to have been part of the group, said to have plotted to overthrow the republic and replace it with a new state modelled on the Germany of 1871 – an empire called the Second Reich.
“We don’t yet have a name for this group,” said a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor’s office.
Three thousand officers took part in 130 raids across much of the country, with two people arrested in Austria and Italy. Those detained were due to be questioned later in the day. As many as eight of the arrests took place in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted that a major anti-terror operation was taking place and a suspected “armed attack on constitutional bodies was planned”. The interior minister said later that the investigation would peer into the “abyss of a terrorist threat from the Reichsbürger sphere”.
The federal prosecutor’s office said the group had been plotting a violent coup since November 2021 and members of its central “Rat” (council) had since held regular meetings.
Investigators are thought to have got wind of the group when they uncovered a kidnap plot last April involving a gang who called themselves United Patriots.
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