German justice announced on Thursday that it had thwarted plans for far-right attacks, fomented by a radicalized fringe of the “antivax” movement, which supported the Russian president and wanted to attack “the democratic order”.
Four people were arrested after a crackdown in a messaging network called “United Patriots”, announced the Koblenz public prosecutor’s office and the Rhineland-Palatinate police in a press release.
“We will fight the enemies of our democracy with all the means of the rule of law,” promised Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Twitter.
The network organized on the Telegram platform was considering kidnappings of public figures, including Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, a supporter of restrictions in the face of Covid-19.
He said he was “shattered” when he heard the news.
Interior Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate Roger Lewentz spoke of “far-right terrorism”, with a group gathering some “70 people” in the country, during a press conference.
The members talked among themselves “from a reversal of the democratic order, the establishment of a new government, to statements that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin should also succeed here in Germany to allow the advent of a new system, he detailed.
– “Very dangerous” minority
Personally targeted, the Social Democratic Minister of Health denounced a drift of certain “Querdenker” (literally anti-conformists), as these opponents of government policy to fight the pandemic are called in Germany.
This “shows not only that the protests against the anti-Covid rules have become radicalized, (…) but that there are parallel attempts to destabilize the state”, he reacted to the press, deploring actions “of a small but very dangerous minority”.
In a statement, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called the group’s “coup fantasies” and kidnapping plans a “new dimension of the terrorist threat” against Germany.
These suspects had notably planned to attack the electricity networks to cause “a long-lasting power outage throughout the territory”, which would have, in their minds, created the conditions for a “civil war”, according to the authorities.
– Germany on alert –
The police had been investigating this group since October 2021.
During searches in nine regions on Wednesday, investigators notably seized firearms and ammunition, gold bars and silver coins, currencies worth more than 10,000 euros, as well as mobile phones including analysis still needs to be done.
They also found false vaccination certificates against Covid-19, or several documents written on their plans to overthrow the state.
The investigation concerns 5 suspects, all Germans, aged between 41 and 55, 4 of whom have been arrested.
Police operations targeting the radical fringe of the anti-health restrictions movement have multiplied in the country, which has placed far-right violence at the forefront of threats to public order, before the jihadist risk.
This movement has been particularly mobilized in Germany since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and active in Telegram groups. She makes threats against elected officials or during demonstrations.
The street protests, however, have dwindled since the easing of restrictions in the country and the recent failure of a mandatory vaccination law that the government of Olaf Scholz failed to pass. .
More generally, Germany has been on high alert against far-right terrorism since the June 2019 murder by a neo-Nazi activist of an elected member of Angela Merkel’s conservative party who defended the policy of welcoming migrants from the former chancellor.
His death had had the effect of an electric shock in the country. And since the police operations are frequent.
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