Over an alleged coup plot, German police detain 25 people.
According to news accounts, the 25 were members of the far-right Reichsbuerger movement who intended to force their way into parliament and install a prince who had sought backing from Russia as the country’s leader.
In connection with an alleged plot to overthrow the government, German police detained 25 persons nationwide on Wednesday.
According to news reports, Germany’s federal prosecutor claimed that the 25 were members of the extreme right Reichsbuerger movement, who intended to forcefully storm parliament and appoint a prince who had sought support from Russia as the new leader.
But Russia has refuted any part in the scheme.
According to Dmitry Peskov, a Russian spokesman, “This appears to be a German internal matter,” he told reporters, according to Al Jazeera.
There can be no doubt that Russia is not interfering, he said.
According to Al Jazeera, 130 locations in 11 German federal states were subjected to raids by roughly 3,000 officers against supporters of the so-called Reich Citizens movement.
About 22 of those detained were German citizens who were being held on suspicion of “participation in a terrorist organization,” while three others, including a Russian citizen, were being held on suspicion of supporting the group.
Some group members advocate overthrowing the elected government in favor of their own because they believe the post-World War Two administration is illegitimate.
They do not rule out using violence against the state to accomplish their objectives.
The facilities of Germany’s special forces unit KSK in the town of Calw were among the places targeted, according to the weekly magazine Der Spiegel.
The KSK has already been under scrutiny for potential far-right activity by some of its soldiers. The barracks was searched, but federal prosecutors would not confirm or deny this.
According to the prosecutor’s office, additional suspects were detained in the states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Saxony, and Thuringia as well as in neighboring Austria and Italy.
The suspects, according to the prosecution, were planning to use force to carry out their plan beginning at the end of November 2021.
According to Germany’s privacy law, Heinrich XIII P R, a former member of the German royal family, was to serve as the leader of a future state, with Rüdiger v P serving as the commander of the military, according to the prosecutor’s office.
They are charged with founding a “terrorist organization with the purpose of overthrowing the current state order in Germany and replacing it with their own kind of state, which was already in the process of being formed.”
The prosecutor’s office claimed that Heinrich, who goes by the title prince and is descended from the royal House of Reuss, which had held sway over some of eastern Germany, had contacted Russian officials in order to establish its new regime.
It claimed there was no proof the agents had responded favorably to the request.
Government of Germany reacts
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stated that the German government will respond with the full weight of the law.
Al Jazeera quoted Ms. Faeser as saying in a statement that “the investigations provide a glimpse into the abyss of a terrorist threat from the Reichsbuerger milieu,” adding that the constitutional state knew how to defend itself against “the enemies of democracy.”
According to local media, the House of Reuss had previously distanced itself from Heinrich, branding him as a confused individual who was interested in conspiracies. Requests for comment were not answered by the House of Reuss or the Prince Reuss’s Office.
A century ago, the monarchy in Germany was eliminated. The legal privileges and titles of German nobility were abolished on August 14, 1919, when the Weimar Constitution went into effect. Officially, Germany has no princes or princesses.
In Germany during the past few years, far-right ideology has grown in an alarming way.
327 employees of Germany’s federal and state security agencies were discovered to have connections to hardline right-wing ideology over a three-year period, according to a report from the Federal Ministry of the Interior in May.
