A large-scale operation by German police within right-wing extremist and conspiracy groups led to the dissolution of a cell planning attacks, particularly aimed at the Bundestag, on Wednesday morning, prosecutors said.
The raid led to the nationwide arrest of 25 people who belonged to the “Reich Citizens” movement. In particular, they are suspected of “having made concrete preparations to forcefully invade the German Bundestag with a small armed group,” the public prosecutor said.
“We suspect that an armed attack on the constitutional organs was planned,” Justice Minister Marco Buschmann commented in a Twitter message, which conjured up “a major anti-terrorist operation”.
Around 3,000 police forces were mobilized across Germany and more than 130 searches were carried out.
In addition to the 25 arrests, according to the public prosecutor’s office, 27 other people are the target of the investigation and are suspected of belonging to the criminal cell.
“The continuation of the investigation will clarify whether there are elements of the crime of preparing a treasonable enterprise against the state,” prosecutors add.
The cell, founded “by the end of 2021 at the latest”, “aims to overcome the existing state order in Germany and to replace it with its own form of government”, a project that can only be realized “with military means” and violence against state representatives”. , according to the press release of the public prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe, which is responsible for state security proceedings.
Their members unite “a profound rejection of state institutions and the free-democratic basic order of the Federal Republic of Germany, which has grown with them over time, the decision to participate in their violent elimination and to become concrete preparatory actions for this purpose”, decode the prosecutors.
In recent years, German authorities have ranked far-right violence as the number one threat to public order, ahead of the risk of jihad.
In the spring, the German authorities smashed up a right-wing extremist group suspected of having planned attacks in the country in addition to the kidnapping of the health minister.