This was the most recent in a string of plots by extremist networks that have been uncovered in recent years. They are getting ready for Day X, the day they predict the democratic order will collapse.
The idea was to storm the German parliament, detain the members, and kill the chancellor. The new head of state would be a prince descending from German nobility, and a national purge would be overseen by a former far-right lawmaker.
The electricity network would be compromised in order to aid the coup. Off-grid communication via satellite phones had already been purchased.
That is what a national far-right terrorist network in Germany, according to prosecutors and intelligence officials, was allegedly planning before 3,000 police officers and members of the Special Forces fanned out throughout the nation on Wednesday to search 150 homes and detain 25 suspected accomplices.
They consisted of at least two army reservists, a police officer, a former officer in the elite special forces, and a soldier on current duty.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz was listed among 18 other politicians on a list of suspected opponents that was found, according to persons familiar with the raids who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the inquiry.
This was the most recent in a string of plans by extremist networks that have been uncovered in recent years. They are getting ready for Day X, the day they predict the democratic order will fall.
Legislator and member of the German parliament’s intelligence oversight committee Konstantin von Notz remarked, “This is not the first occurrence of a cell like this prepping for Day X.”
“These incidents are increasing in number, and it is unclear to what extent they are related.”
It is unclear whether the conspirators were even close to attempting to carry out their plan, or how capable they would have been at carrying it out: Some intelligence officials claim that the organisation twice missed the dates on which they intended to launch their attack. Prosecutors claimed that several of those detained were known to be highly armed and described the conspiracy as arguably the brazenest in Germany’s postwar history, one that was directed squarely at the centre of the government.
One person was held in Austria and the other in Italy after being arrested outside of Germany.
The right-wing German conspiracy group known as the Reich burger, or Citizens of the Reich, which contends that Germany’s post-World War II Republic is not a sovereign state but rather a corporation set up by the victorious Allies, and Qanoon ideologies were influential in the formation of the group, according to the prosecution.
The group gained momentum in recent years, especially after the pandemic, as its adherents and way of thinking merged with the Qanoon movement’s conspiracy theories. In particular, they saw a threat from the so-called “deep state,” a shadowy cabal of dishonest elites they imagine running the government.
