BERLIN, Dec 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — German police staged nationwide raids on Wednesday and arrested 25 people suspected of belonging to a far-right “terror cell” plotting to overthrow the government and attack parliament.
Around 3,000 officers including elite anti-terror units took part in the early morning raids and searched more than 130 properties, in what German media described as one of the country’s largest police actions ever against extremists.
The raids targeted alleged members of the “Citizens of the Reich” (Reichsbuerger) movement suspected of “having made concrete preparations to violently force their way into the German parliament with a small armed group”, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Those arrested are accused of having formed “a terrorist group by the end of November 2021 at the latest, which had set itself the goal of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it with their own kind of state”, they said.
Two of the 25 arrests were made abroad, in Austria and Italy.
The prosecutors in Karlsruhe said they had identified a further 27 people as suspected members or supporters of the terror network.
The Reichsbuerger movement, which includes neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists and gun enthusiasts who reject the legitimacy of the modern German republic, generally believe in the continued existence of the pre-World War I German Reich, or empire, under a monarchy and several groups have declared their own states.
They allegedly planned to appoint one of the arrested suspects, identified by local media as aristocrat and businessman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss, as Germany’s new leader after the coup.
As part of the preparations for the coup, members of the alleged terror cell acquired weapons, organised shooting practices and tried to recruit new followers, particularly among the military and police, according to prosecutors.
Former soldiers are believed to be among the members of the recently established terror group, they said.
Germany’s domestic intelligence service estimates that the Reichsbuerger scene consists of around 20,000 people, with more than 2,000 are deemed potentially violent.
In April, police foiled a plot by a far-right group to kidnap the health minister. — NNN-AGENCIES
