An aristocrat, an astrologer and an army officer: when postwar Germany’s first high-treason trial begins on Monday, the cast of colourful conspirators hold promise of a high-security, three-ring legal circus.
Nearly 18 months ago, their alleged plot to overthrow the German democratic order was foiled in a series of high-profile raids, sparking an avalanche of sarcastic memes and talkshow jokes in late 2022.
But the unprecedented legal procedures – involving 27 defendants in three parallel court cases in Munich, Frankfurt and Stuttgart – will throw up many awkward questions, too. In particular: why did the conspirators get as far as they did?
Their plan was radical: after a signal via satellite phones, a militia armed with guns, knives and nearly 150,000 rounds of ammunition was to storm the Reichstag parliamentary building in Berlin, detain MPs and announce a coup.
A new government was waiting in the wings with a monarch as head of state: Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuss zu Köstritz, a 71-year-old property magnate and wine dealer from an aristocratic family.
His reported right-hand in the plot: Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a Berlin circuit court judge and former MP for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
Prosecutors accuse these and others of belonging to a conspiratorial “council” that planned their coup for at least a year, in chats and calls monitored by domestic intelligence. Later, former soldiers and police officers allegedly signed up to create an expanded paramilitary wing.
Reuss, Malsack-Winkemann and eight others of the alleged “political council” go on trial on May 21st in Frankfurt, and eight further suspected supporters appear in a Munich court from June.
Monday’s trial in Stuttgart involves the paramilitary plotters facing charges of membership of a terrorist group and treason – the first time this charge has been brought in modern Germany.
The trial will take place in a new high-security facility of Stuttgart higher regional court at the Stammhem prison, where left-wing Red Army Faction terrorists were tried in the 1970s.
Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office instructed the court case to be broken up into three parallel procedures. The aim is to speed up proceedings without sacrificing fair process for the defendants.
“We want that everything takes place under the rule of law, we don’t want some sort of show trial in a sports hall,” said Dr Andreas Singer, president of the Stuttgart upper regional court.
Monday’s proceedings begin with a case against a defendant identified as Markus L who was arrested in March 2023, three months after the first raid. As well as terrorism and conspiracy charges, he is on trial for attempted murder for using a semi-automatic weapon in a shoot-out with arresting police, injuring two of them.
The Stuttgart trial is likely to give fresh insights into links between the plotters and Germany’s “Reichsbürger” movement, a loose network of around 23,000 people who deny the existence of the German state; many, in addition, stockpile weapons in preparation for possible armed insurrection.
Stuttgart prosecutors say the paramilitary wing was the “beating conspiratorial heart” of the plot, steered by leaders who believe a “conglomerate of conspiracy myths”. Among the Stuttgart accused, and a link to the political council, is former German elite army officer Rüdiger von Pescatore,
He is known for repeating baseless claims from the US QAnon movement of secretive child-abuse networks operating among local political and entertainment circles.
The Stuttgart trials will be key, too, in establishing just how far advanced the technical end of the alleged coup was given what prosecutors call the “confused” political planning of Reuss and his kitchen cabinet.
With seven judges, 22 lawyers, 300 witnesses and 425,000 pages of files, the Stuttgart trial alone will be the biggest Germany has seen in decades.
Given the seriousness of the charges, and the radical nature of the Reichsbürger scene, authorities are taking no chances with security measures.
The custom-built court facility – a 55 metre-long prefabricated cabin – is surrounded bydozens of cameras and security gates. Inside, a bulletproof glass panel separates the chamber from the public gallery.
Stuttgart prosecutors will reveal further details of the alleged coup, including “enemy lists” of public figures to be detained. In their documents, plotters reportedly acknowledged their planned takeover “could be linked to the killing of people”.
Similarly, any plotter who revealed coup plans to non-members “should be punished, as high treason, with the death penalty”.
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