1 / 2
25 people from a network linked to the far-right movement Reichsbürger were arrested on Wednesday morning during a major police operation in Germany. A prince, who is supposed to be a major chief, has now been arrested.
The case is up to date!
More than 3,000 police and special forces officers contributed to the operation, where they searched more than 130 apartments across Germany early Wednesday morning, the German attorney general said in a press release.
The target was a terrorist network with ties to the neo-Nazi Reichsbürger movement. Police believe the group planned to carry out a coup.
The plans are said to have been to storm the Bundestag in Berlin and take members of parliament hostage, then introduce a new head of state in Germany, the newspaper said. time.
At least 25 people were arrested during the action. Among them were 22 German nationals and one Russian, according to the newspaper.
Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser refers to the action as “a glimpse into the abyss that constitutes the terrorist threat to the Reichsbürger community,” writes Reuters.
– Democracy is well protected: A major counter-terrorism operation has been underway since this morning, German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann wrote on Twitter after the operation.
– It is suspected that an armed attack against constitutional bodies was planned, he adds.
Led by prince and German officer
The network will consist of a total of 52 people suspected of terrorist planning. Image learned that many of them were in legal possession of weapons.
The main leaders will be a prince from the German noble Reuss family, named Heinrich XIII, as well as an officer who previously headed a special department of the German army, according to the attorney general.
The prince was arrested on Wednesday morning after a raid on a building in Frankfurt. Images from German news agency DPA show the prince, handcuffed, being led by police into a police car.
The network reportedly planned to install Heinrich XIII as head of state after carrying out the coup.
Heinrich XIII was previously ostracized by the rest of the Reuss family, who called him “a confused old man” in relation to anti-Semitic statements, according to the channel.
The network will also include Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, former politician of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Among other things, she is known for supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory.
– Everything is about to change. The former prosecutors and judges as well as the top managers responsible for the health authorities and their supervision will soon find themselves in the dock at Nuremberg 2.0, one of the suspects would have written on Telegram a few minutes before the police action, according to the newspaper.
The message refers to the Nuremberg trials, where the leaders of Nazi Germany were tried after the Second World War. Faktisk.no has previously written about how rumors of a Nuremberg 2 trial have become a popular conspiracy theory among the far right.
A composition of right-wing radical groups
– This is not so surprising, because that movement has had continuity over time. There is a lot of activity on the far right in Germany in general, and the Reichsbürger movement now has at least 18,000 members, Cathrine Thorleifsson tells VG.
He heads the Commission on Extremism, which works to prevent radicalization in Norway, and previously worked at C-REX at UiO.
Thorleifsson describes the Reichsbürger movement as a composition of many different groups from the far right wing – everything from old school Nazis to modern conspiracy theorists.
A main feature of the movement is that it denies the existence of the German Republic after World War II, he explains.
– They believe that present-day Germany is nothing more than an administrative construction still occupied by Western powers, says the researcher.
– There is a common inspiration in the movement, which is particularly about being a citizen of an independent and sovereign nation-state, he adds.
Cathrine Thorleifsson explains that the Reichsbürger experienced radicalization during the corona pandemic, when they united with other radical groups to show opposition to the corona measures.
After the refugee crisis in 2015, so-called “accelerators” have also seen an upswing within the movement, according to the researcher. They fear, inter alia, that the white race is under threat in Europe, and in Norway, inter alia Philip Manshaus he became attached to this mentality.
– German media write that a former AfD politician is supposed to be part of this terrorist network. How amazing is that?
– AfD has attracted some individuals who are openly Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust denier. This is exactly the same in Sweden, where individual Social Democrat politicians have had ties to the Nordic resistance movement, Thorleifsson replies.
Willing to use military force
A “Reichsbürger” (“citizen of the Reich”) does not recognize the German state, and many consider themselves descendants of the German Reich, which existed from 1871 to 1945 and which Nazi Germany extended from 1933 to 1945.
The movement has set itself the goal of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it with a separate form of government, writes the attorney general in a press release.
– The members of the association are aware that this project can only be realized through the use of military means and violence against state representatives. This also includes committing murder, writes the attorney general.
The German intelligence service estimates that 2,000 of the approximately 20,000 members of the Reichsbürger movement are potentially violent, writes AFP.
The Reichsbürger movement consists of a number of small groups and individuals, mainly in the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Bavaria in southern and eastern Germany.
They refuse to pay taxes, often create their own passports and have declared their own small “national territories”, which they refer to as “The Second German Reich”, “The Free State of Prussia” or “The Principality of Germany”.
One of the most famous of the Reichsbürger movement is the former Mr. Germany, Adrian Ursache. He founded the “state” of Ur on his own plot of land in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, with the associated flag and coat of arms.
In 2016 there were clashes between him and the police, and he stayed sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for attempted murder after shooting a police officer.
