Eight
arrests in Germany over alleged plot to establish Nazi-inspired regime
Group
alleged to have been plotting armed takeover of eastern regions to establish a
Nazi-inspired regime
Deborah Cole
in Berlin
Tue 5 Nov
2024 12.28 GMT
Police in
Germany have arrested eight suspected members of a far-right terror cell
alleged to have been plotting the armed takeover of eastern regions to
establish a Nazi-inspired regime that would carry out “ethnic cleansing”,
federal prosecutors said.
Amid a
crackdown on neo-Nazi militants, the German nationals calling themselves
Sächsische Separatisten (Saxonian Separatists) were taken into custody on
Tuesday in pre-dawn raids on 20 premises in eastern Germany and the Polish
border city of Zgorzelec, with another seven suspects in investigators’ sights.
Spiegel
magazine reported that three of the suspects were politicians who had held
local office for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party. One of them,
identified only as Kurt H., was shot in the jaw by police during the raid in
the town of Grimma after he reached for a rifle, Spiegel said, citing security
sources.
Police
responded by firing “warning shots”. The report said he had been operated on
and was out of danger.
Locations in
Austria, not directly linked to any of the suspects, were also searched,
including in the capital, Vienna.
The federal
prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the Saxonian Separatists,
numbering 15 to 20 people, had been active since at least November 2020, with
an ideology “characterised by racist, antisemitic and partially apocalyptic
ideas”.
The group,
mainly young men, some of them adolescents, allegedly rejects Germany’s liberal
democratic order, which it believes is nearing collapse and will implode on an
unspecified “Day X”.
“On that
occasion, the group intends to gain control over certain areas in Saxony and
potentially in other east German states – namely by force of arms – to
establish governmental and societal structures inspired by national socialism,”
the prosecutor’s office said.
“If
necessary, unwanted groups of people are supposed to be removed from the area
by means of ethnic cleansing.”
It said the
alleged plotters had been preparing for violent struggle with paramilitary
training “in combat gear”, practising “urban warfare, firearms handling … as
well as patrolling”. Police said the group had procured camouflage fatigues,
combat helmets, gas masks and bulletproof vests but did not indicate they had
found any weapons.
More than
450 police and special forces were deployed as part of the investigation.
The suspects
in custody were to appear on Tuesday and Wednesday before a federal judge who
will rule on whether they should remain in pre-trial detention.
The interior
minister, Nancy Faeser, who has repeatedly called rightwing extremists the
biggest threat to domestic security, hailed the arrests as “an important
success” in the fight against the militant far right.
The justice
minister, Marco Buschmann, said in a statement that the police action was a
reminder that Germany’s constitutional system and free and democratic order
“are under threat from many sides”.
“We must do
everything we can to defend our liberal democracy against its enemies,” he
added.
German
authorities have repeatedly swooped on far-right groups allegedly seeking to
overthrow the government.
In 2022,
police arrested a sprawling group of far-right conspiracists allegedly linked
to the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) movement and believed to have
planned to violently topple the country’s parliament, forcibly eliminate the
existing state order and replace it with their own regime.
Police could
not immediately be reached for comment.
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