25 people suspected of plotting to overthrow the government have been arrested in raids across Germany.
A group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to be ready to storm the Reichstag, the parliament building, and seize power.
A minor aristocrat described as Prince Heinrich XIII, 71, is alleged to have been central to their plans.
He is one of two alleged ringleaders arrested in 11 German states, according to federal prosecutors.
The plotters are said to include members of the extremist Reichsbürger [Citizens of the Reich] movement, which has long been a target of German police for violent attacks and racist conspiracy theories. They also refuse to recognize the modern German state.
Other suspects came from the QAnon movement who believe their country is in the hands of a “deep state”.
Conspirators are ready to kill their ends.
An estimated 50 men and women were part of the group, which is said to have plotted to overthrow the republic and replace it with a new state modeled after Germany in 1871.
“We don’t have a name for the group yet,” said a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office.
Three thousand officers took part in 130 raids across most of the country, with two people arrested in Austria and Italy. Those detained were to be interrogated during the day.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted that a major counter-terrorism operation was underway and that the suspect “planned an armed attack on constitutional institutions”.
The federal prosecutor’s office said the group had been planning a violent coup since November 2021 and that members of its central “rat” (council) have held regular meetings since then.
The prosecutor said he had already established plans to govern Germany with the ministries of health, justice and foreign affairs. Members understood that they could only achieve their goals through “military means and violence against state representatives”, including assassination.
Investigators are believed to have gotten wind of the group when they uncovered a kidnapping plot last April involving a group calling itself the United Patriots.
They were also part of the Reichsbürger scene and allegedly planned to kidnap Health Minister Karl Lauterbach while also creating “civil war conditions” to destroy German democracy.
A former far-right AfD member of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, is suspected of being part of the plot, and lined up as the group’s justice minister. Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who was among the 25 arrested, returned to her role as a judge last year and a court has since rejected attempts to remove her.
A prominent lawyer was enlisted to handle the group’s foreign affairs, with Prince Heinrich as leader.
Elites ’caused by conspiracy theories’
Heinrich XIII is descended from an old noble family known as the House of Reus, which ruled parts of the modern eastern state of Thuringia until 1918.
Descendants still own some of the castles and Heinrich himself is said to have a hunting lodge at Bad Lubenstein in Thuringia.
The rest of the family have long distanced themselves from the modest elite, with a spokesman telling local broadcaster MDR over the summer that Henrik was a “sometimes confused” man who “was born with conspiracy theories.” “Misunderstanding”.
Along with the shadow government, the conspirators allegedly planned a military wing run by a second ringleader identified as Rudiger von P.
Officials believe they were made up of active and former members of the military and included former elite soldiers from special units. Prosecutors said the military wing aimed to destroy democratic institutions at the local level.
Rüdiger von P is suspected of trying to recruit police officers in northern Germany and also to monitor army barracks. After the overthrow of the government, all bases in the states of Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria were inspected for possible use, officials said.
One of the men under investigation was a member of the special commando forces, and police searched his home and his room at the Graf-Zeppelin military base in Köln, southwest of Stuttgart.
Another suspect has been identified as Vitalya B., a Russian woman who was asked by Heinrich to approach Moscow. The Russian embassy in Berlin said in a statement that it “does not maintain links with representatives of terrorist groups and other illegal entities”.
A number of violent attacks have been linked to Germany’s far-right in recent years. In 2020, a 43-year-old man shot dead nine people of foreign origin in the western town of Hanau, and in 2016 a member of Reichsberg was jailed for killing a policeman.
The Reichsbürger movement is estimated to have around 21,000 adherents, of whom around 5% are believed to belong to the far right.
