German Raids Foil Alleged Terror Plot For Rightist Coup

"German authorities said they had dismantled a suspected terror cell on suspicion of planning to overthrow the government, rekindling concerns in the country about the risks posed by domestic terrorists.

Twenty-five people who were partly inspired by the QAnon conspiracy theory were arrested in the early hours of Wednesday, 22 of whom are suspected of conspiring to foment a coup, the federal prosecutor said. Their alleged plans included an armed storming of the federal parliament. The other three, including a Russian citizen living in Germany, are suspected of supporting the group, the prosecutor said.

More than 3,000 police officers including special forces conducted raids at 150 properties across Germany, Italy and Austria, in one of the largest operations of its kind in recent history, officials said.

"This organization has, according to our knowledge, set the goal of using violence and military means to overthrow the existing liberal democratic order in Germany," federal prosecutor Peter Frank said Wednesday. Its members believed Germany was governed by a so-called deep state and would soon be freed by a secret society of officials and military officers from the U.S., Russia and elsewhere, he said.

After years focused on countering the threat posed by Islamist terrorists, German authorities have widened their focus to far-right militants following a spate of attacks. These included the 2019 killing of a center-left local politician in western Germany and an attack by a gunman on a synagogue in Halle, eastern Germany, that left two people dead later that year.

At the same time, there has been growing concern among German officials about the radicalization of members of the military and security services. Several police officers and members of the armed forces have in the past been arrested in raids connected to extremist groups. In 2020, the government said it would disband part of its elite special-forces unit and rebuild the rest under new leadership after it was infiltrated by far-right elements.

While members of extremist groups in the armed forces and security and law-enforcement agencies constitute a small minority, the presence of rogue networks within the security establishment is an acutely sensitive matter because of Germany's Nazi past.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, unrelated groups with diverse political backgrounds began coalescing around their rejection of the state and its institutions, according to the German domestic intelligence agency. The phenomenon gave rise to increasingly violent protests, which culminated in an attempt to storm parliament in 2020.

"They do not have classic ideology or political rallying point," an official with the agency said. "They include far-right extremists. . .cults, pro-Russian agitators, anti-Semites and all manner of people from across the spectrum, united only in their rejection of the state, the democratic order and its institutions."

News of Wednesday's arrests prompted alarm from politicians and Jewish organizations that had been warning about in increase in anti-Semitic attacks in the country.

The alleged terror group, whose suspected leaders included a former elite paratrooper commander, had been attempting to recruit police and armed-forces members, and had sought to set up cells across Germany to help it install and maintain a military government, according to the prosecutor, Mr. Frank.

"The suspects are united in a deep rejection of the Federal Republic of Germany, which has in the course of time developed in a decision to initiate a violent coup for which they had made specific preparations," the prosecutor said.

"The members of the organization understood that their endeavor could only be realized by using military means and violence against representatives of the state. This includes committing murders."

"The people who had been arrested subscribe to conspiracy myths composed of different narratives of the Reichsburger and the QAnon ideologies," Mr. Frank said.

The German Reichsburger, or Citizens of the Reich, movement doesn't recognize the authority of the postwar government. Members have printed their own passports and other documents, and set up their own schools. Some factions seek to re-establish the German Empire that was dismantled after World War I.

QAnon is a far-right, loosely organized network and community of believers who embrace a range of outlandish and unsubstantiated beliefs. It has spread worldwide from the U.S. and has been linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Outside the U.S., QAnon online channels have their largest subscriber base in Germany, according to several assessments by extremism researchers. The conspiracy has been spreading rapidly in Germany since 2020, especially in the ranks of critics of Covid-19 restrictions.

The people detained on Wednesday included a sergeant serving with the KSK, the special military command of Germany, and a former lawmaker, as well as several former servicemen, including two colonels, officials said.

One of the alleged ringleaders was named by the prosecutor as Heinrich XIII P.R. Der Spiegel and other German news publications identified the man as Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuss, a 71-year-old prince and known far-right extremist. In a speech posted on YouTube in 2019, Mr. Reuss espoused anti-Semitic views and conspiracies.

Calls to a number on what claims to be the prince's website went unanswered.

Another suspect was identified by German publications as Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, 58, a judge in Berlin and a former member of parliament for the nationalist Alternative for Germany party.A lawyer who has in the past represented Ms. Malsack-Winkemann declined to comment." [1]

1. German Raids Foil Alleged Terror Plot For Rightist Coup
Pancevski, Bojan.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 08 Dec 2022: A.1.