Paul Kirby at the BBC reports
Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids across Germany on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.
The group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to have prepared for a "Day X" to storm the Reichstag parliament building and seize power.
A man named as Heinrich XIII, from an old aristocratic family, is alleged to have been central to their plans.
According to federal prosecutors, he is one of two alleged ringleaders among those arrested across 11 German states.
The plotters are said to include members of the extremist Reichsbürger [Citizens of the Reich] movement, which has long been in the sights of German police over violent attacks and racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. They also refuse to recognise the modern German state.
Other suspects came from the QAnon movement who believe their country is in the hands of a mythical "deep state" involving secret powers pulling the political strings.
There are a number of elements in this story that should be of concern to everyone, not just in Germany. The participation by people described as QAnon members who believe in a Deep State conspiracy shows that it’s not just a fringe group in the U.S.
The plotters were reported as being prepared to use violence. They had been directing recruiting efforts at police and members of the military, again something that is being seen in the U.S. There are doubtless going to be further developments given the size of the operation by police.
An estimated 50 men and women are alleged to have been part of the group, said to have plotted to overthrow the republic and replace it with a new state modelled on the Germany of 1871 - an empire called the Second Reich.
"We don't yet have a name for this group," said a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office. The interior minister said it was apparently made up of an organisation "council" and a military arm.
Wednesday's dawn raids are being described as one of the biggest anti-extremism operations in modern German history. Three thousand officers took part in 150 operations in 11 of Germany's 16 states, with two people arrested in Austria and Italy.
Almost half of arrests took place in southern states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria.
Given that the U.S. is still dealing with similar conspiracy theories that were part of the January 6 insurrection, the arrests in Germany should be followed up to see what kind of connections may turn up here. Of particular interest should be following up any possible connections with Americans on the right who have shown a particular fascination with right-wing movements in Europe.
Read the whole thing at the BBC. There will likely be further developments. A companion BBC report by Jenny Hill warns Reichsbürger: German 'crackpot' movement turns radical and dangerous.
The Reichsbürger were, for years, a source of national derision, dismissed as crackpots.
But they're increasingly a source of concern for the security services who say they're becoming more radical and more dangerous.
Members don't recognise the post-war German state and reject the authority of its government. Despite the name, this is no organised national movement - rather a disparate set of small groups and individuals scattered across the country who are united in that shared belief.
Some print their own currency and identity cards and dream of creating their own autonomous state.
Earlier this year for example, a group calling itself the Königreich Deutschland (Kingdom Germany) bought two pieces of land in Saxony upon which they intended to create their own self-administered state.
Others refuse to pay tax or intentionally clog up the administration of local authorities by sending large volumes of, often abusive, letters.
And many have guns - legally or otherwise.
Change the names and the locations, this is a story that could easily have been written about some people in America. David Neiwert’s report on the power outages in Moore County is a warning that Germany is not the only place where domestic terrorism is a threat.
Something to watch will be how U.S. News media reports on this story in Germany — especially the slant coming from the right, such as Tucker Carlson.
UPDATE: The New York Times has an article up about the arrests in Germany. (Paywall — sorry.)
...In early-morning raids carried out across the country, some 3,000 police and Special Forces officers detained people believed to be members and supporters of the group, which prosecutors said had been formed in the past year and was operating on the conviction that “Germany is currently ruled by members of a so-called deep state” that needed to be overthrown. Prosecutors said that two other people had been arrested outside Germany, one in Austria and another in Italy.
Among those detained were a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany party who had served in the German Parliament, a member of the German nobility and a Russian citizen accused of supporting the group’s plans. Federal prosecutors said that they were investigating a total of 52 suspects.
The group’s plans included an armed attack on the German Parliament building, known as the Reichstag, the prosecutors said, and members had organized arms training and attempted to recruit personnel from the German security services. The prosecutors added that the group’s members had also formed a sort of shadow government that they intended to install if their plans were successful. It remains unclear, however, how close they were to acting on those ambitions.
Among other things,
...Another of those detained, identified by prosecutors as Birgit M.-W., was suspected of being appointed to head the justice arm of the group. German media identified her as Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a judge in Berlin and member of Alternative for Germany. She served as member of Parliament from 2017 to 2021.
A Russian citizen, whom the prosecutors identified as “Vitalia B.,” was “strongly suspected” of supporting Heinrich XIII in trying to establish contacts with Moscow.
The group, which included people who had taken part in demonstrations against coronavirus lockdowns, was fueled by conspiracy theories, the authorities said.
According to the members of the group, liberation is promised by the imminent intervention of the “Alliance,” a technically superior secret coalition of governments, intelligence services and militaries of various states, including Russia and the United States, according to the prosecutors.
emphasis added
Paging Sinclair Lewis…
UPDATE: Digby links to an NBC News report on the arrests.
The German prosecutor's office said the suspects belong to a terrorist group founded in November 2021 at the latest, which aims to overthrow the government in Berlin and install its own leaders through the "forcible elimination of the democratic constitutional state."
"The members of the association are aware that this project can only be realized through the use of military means and violence against state representatives," the prosecutor's office said in a statement early Wednesday. It said there was "the suspicion that individual members of the association have made concrete preparations to forcibly invade" the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, "with a small armed group."
"The details are yet to be worked out," it added.
The statement added that the group was motivated by a rejection of the "free democratic basic order of the Federal Republic of Germany."
Some member’s the group’s “military arm” are former members of the German army, the Bundeswehr, prosecutors said. The German armed forces have been beset by a series of scandals involving personnel belonging to far-right groups.
She concludes with this comment:
This seems especially nutty until you reflect that we have a violent insurrection just two years ago and the leader was the lame duck president of the United States. These guys are amateurs compared to that.