German investigators say further arrests are likely over an alleged coup d’etat plot by an extremist group, in particular among police and army officers.
So far investigators have identified 54 suspects and conducted more than 150 searches and confiscated large numbers of weapons, including crossbows and rifles, at more than 50 locations.
A day after searches in 11 federal states – as well as Austria and Italy – Germany’s federal criminal police (BKA) chief said the extremist group, led by an eccentric Frankfurt aristocrat, comprised “a dangerous mix of people with irrational convictions, some with a lot of money and others in possession of weapons”.
Holger Münch, BKA president, said investigators had identified “a few dozen members, maybe 100” and said it was not likely that they could topple Germany’s constitutional order.
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“But the group had a plan that they also intended to put into practice ... that makes it dangerous and that is why we intervened,” he added.
Most of the group members are thought to have links to the Reichsbürger (citizens of the Reich) movement, a loose ideological alliance of far-right extremists, gun enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists who dispute the legality of the modern German state.
The group had a plan that they also intended to put into practice ... that makes it dangerous and that is why we intervened
— Holger Münch, president of Germany’s federal criminal police
Given the coup group’s growing public profile in the last decade, and links to more than 1,100 criminal incidents in that time, Germany’s domestic intelligence chief said it had been monitored for most of this year. Through informers and communications surveillance, they had become alarmed at a rise in weapons procurement and increasingly firm attack plans.
“The German security authorities, acting together, had the situation under control at all times,” said Mr Thomas Haldenwang, president of Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
As the dust settled after Wednesday’s raids, analysts sounded the alarm after a second suspect was identified as having links to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
As well as a former AfD Bundestag MP in custody, police are questioning a former AfD city councillor from Saxony.
“We cannot say that these putsch plans were in any way co-ordinated with the AfD leadership,” said Dr Steffen Kallitz, an extremism expert at the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden. “But the AfD has definitely contributed as a transmission platform for conspiracy theories in Germany, and as a catchment group for extreme right views.”
A similar warning was aired at news of a growing number of suspects with a police or army [Bundeswehr] background.
Federal interior minister Nancy Faeser said the group was dangerous because, alongside a political council, it had a growing militia involving “people who used to be in the Bundeswehr, so they can also handle weapons”.
[ German police arrest suspected ringleaders of far-right coup planOpens in new window ]
After a series of recent scandals involving extremist soldiers with weapons, intelligence chief Haldenwang has demanded full security checks on all serving in the German security services and the military.
The Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which highlights right-wing extremism, racism and anti-Semitism, has warned that Germany is structurally blind to extremism in its political, police and military circles.
“The fact that not just fringe conspiracy believers but also former Bundestag members, numerous active and former soldiers are part of the network shows how serious we need to take this,” it told Germany’s DPA news agency. “In security circles in particular, however, these groups have often been ridiculed, despite our intensive warnings, and their enormous potential danger taken lightly.”
With three Russian citizens among the suspects, Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev wrote sarcastically on Telegram that “all evil conspiracies, world wars, devastating earthquakes and deadly epidemics emanate from us”.
“Even if we haven’t succeeded,” he added, “these unfinished conspirators are right.”
