Germany Arrests 25 Accused Of Plotting Coup

[Stormkhan]

The House of Lords Act (1999) drastically reduced the number of hereditary peers in the upper chamber and there are now fewer than 100 of them among the lords temporal. Since the vast majority of sitting peers were appointed to their roles they presumably represent a broader cross-section of society than those whose ancestors sat in the House in centuries past. Their old schools might well be the local comprehensives rather than Eton, Harrow or Winchester.

And thanks to a previous Prime Minister, the 'broader cross-section' includes Russian oligarchs.

 

[ramonmercado]

More on the coup plotters.

Last week, German Special Forces and police arrested twenty-five people across the country for plotting what authorities have called a coup against the German state.

The scheme, by turns sinister and farcical, called for executing or exiling current political leaders, and for sabotaging the electricity grid; many of the plotters were storing weapons. The group envisioned placing at the head of the country Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss, a descendant of one of the royal families of the former German Empire. Among those arrested was a member of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD), which has seen some modest political success during the past decade.

To talk about the plot, and how the German far right views the country’s past, I recently spoke by phone with Richard Evans, the Regius Professor Emeritus of history at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of many books on Germany, including a three-volume history of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how imperial nostalgia manifests in modern Germany, how German monarchists view the Nazi era, and why—this recent plot notwithstanding—contemporary Germany has maintained a stronger immunity to right-wing extremism than many other Western countries.


What was your first thought when you heard about this plot?

I was quite surprised. Of course, I knew about the tiny right-wing group—the Reichsbürger, or Citizens of the Reich. It’s very difficult to take them seriously because their aims are so unrealistic. I suppose that they were organized enough to prepare a kind of coup attempt. I don’t think it had any chance of success whatsoever, but clearly they were prepared to use violence. And, in fact, there has been violence associated with these Reich citizens in the past couple of years. They have killed a policeman, for example. So, my thought was, well, how absurd, but also how horrible, really—that kind of violence in the service of fantasy is a dangerous thing.

What is this group harking back to?

The self-styled Reich citizens are a number of different groups with somewhat varying aims. But they have in common a belief that the present-day state of Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, which was founded in the West in 1949 and then extended farther east with the collapse of Communism in 1989 and 1990, is illegitimate. Some of them believe that the Bismarckian Reich, created in 1871, is still the only legally legitimate all-German state, since it was illegally overthrown in a revolution at the end of the First World War. Some of them accept the Weimar Republic, which came into being through the revolution in 1918 and was destroyed by Hitler. But, as a consequence of all that, there are about twenty thousand members of the Reichsbürger movement, although it has half a dozen different and sometimes quarrelling subgroups. ...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-failed-coup-plotters-yearning-for-the-german-reich

 

[Dinobot]

I knew that bugger in my hall cupboard was planning something.

This bugger?!

 

[eziofan]

"We plan a little hike to Bideford"

 

[ramonmercado]

"We plan a little hike to Bideford"

"Well, I think he'd do a lot of good to the Stock Exchange."

 

[Tigerhawk]

Any further news?

 

[ramonmercado]

Any further news?

This piece was published on 19 December but it's more analysis/background rather than new developments.

Why Germany Is Struggling to Address the Reichsbürger Threat​

Right-wing terror has been generally underestimated by German authorities.​

By Thomas O. Falk, a U.K.-based independent journalist and political analyst.

DECEMBER 19, 2022, 12:48 PM

During raids in Austria, Germany, and Italy last week, 3,000 police officers arrested 25 people with alleged ties to a far-right movement known as Reichsbürger, or “citizen(s) of the Reich.”

Those arrested and their dozens of supporters shared a common goal: “eliminating the existing state order in Germany … using violence and military means,” German Attorney General Peter Frank said. Their ideological views range from the rejection of democracy to elements of monarchism, right-wing extremism, historical revisionism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, and esotericism—a belief that occult, metaphysical, and other similar teachings and practices can lead to self-knowledge and self-realization.

In practical terms, their alleged plan included attacking politicians, storming the Bundestag (Germany’s parliament), overthrowing the federal government, dissolving the judiciary, and seizing the military. It is a scenario that seems, at best, bizarre, considering the stability of these democratic structures that have anchored Germany over the past 75 years. Yet the ridicule the movement received until now allowed it to metastasize, and the German authorities have yet to find a coherent solution for this threat.

Unlike the National Socialist Underground, a far-right German neo-Nazi terrorist group founded in 1998 and only uncovered in 2011—to the shock of both the German authorities and the public—the Reichsbürger movement is not a clandestine organization that the authorities were oblivious about.
Parts of the wider public have also been cognizant of their existence, not least because some Reichsbürger are willing to propagate their beliefs not only during rallies or other events but also in TV interviews.

Reichsbürger is an umbrella term for different individuals, groups, and organizations that believe that the Federal Republic of Germany is not a legal state under international law and therefore does not exist. Instead, they view the “German Reich”—usually based on its 1871 borders—as still being the legally valid regime, albeit currently without de facto state power. ....

But what may sound like a mere nuisance has become a serious issue for German authorities. Attacks on government employees, both verbal and physical, are well documented. Reichsbürger supporters’ refusal to pay taxes and fines or comply with court orders and administrative decisions has put bailiffs and police officers in perilous and sometimes fatal circumstances. Near Nuremberg in 2016, for instance, a Reichsbürger adherent murdered a police officer and injured two others.
READ MORE
A general view of the Waidmannsheil hunting lodge near Bad Lobenstein, Germany, where a group is accused of plotting a coup against the German state.

Only in the aftermath of this incident did the relevant authorities start paying attention to the violence these conspiracy theorists are capable of inspiring. Since then, the Reichsbürger movement has been under observation by authorities nationwide and been declared an “anti-state movement” by Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. ...

Gideon Botsch, a University of Potsdam political science professor and expert on right-wing extremism, warned on German radio in 2021 that right-wing terror was generally underestimated by German security authorities, stating that “in Germany, people always assumed: They are too stupid, they can’t do it, they talk a lot, they have violent fantasies—but they don’t implement any of them.”

Since data started being collected by the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in 2016, figures suggest that the scene has been steadily growing. The individual state authorities for the Protection of the Constitution assumed the number of Reich citizens grew to 15,600 by January 2018—an increase of 56 percent compared to 2017.

As of December, the Federal Ministry of the Interior suspects 23,000 people of being part of the Reichsbürger movement, with 2,100 ready to use violence. Thomas Haldenwang, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, confirmed that the movement had become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The protests against COVID-19 measures brought new supporters into the milieu. Some people lost faith in the democratic state and became receptive to supposed freedom struggles and the establishment of an alternative state. The rhetoric of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD)—including its use of terms such as “Corona dictatorship” and equating the government’s public health policies with the 1933 Enabling Act, which paved the way for Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship—undoubtedly contributed to the increase.

Even more concerning than the quantity is the quality of people now pursuing the conspiracy theory. The cell arrested during the Dec. 7 raid did not consist of lower-class working men or uneducated individuals. Among those arrested were a judge who sat in the Bundestag for the AfD, former soldiers, aristocrats, and former members of the police force. In other words, people with contacts, insight into democratic institutions, and financial resources. Some are familiar with or trained in weapons. The involvement of police and armed forces, including special commandos, provided them with heightened capabilities to conduct sophisticated operations. ...

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/19/germany-reichsburger-raid-terrorism-right-wing-extremism/

 

[Frideswide]

Even more concerning than the quantity is the quality of people now pursuing the conspiracy theory. The cell arrested during the Dec. 7 raid did not consist of lower-class working men or uneducated individuals.

This. Very much this

 

[Kondoru]

3000 coppers to arrest 25?

 

[ramonmercado]

3000 coppers to arrest 25?

Many premises were searched, arrests weren't made at all of them. When you're dealing with people who may be armed it's best to ensure that you vastly outnumber them both in personnel and qua;ity of weapons.

The articles posted on this Thread (with more at the links) go into detail regarding the nature of the police operations.

 

[ramonmercado]

An Austrian case.

Austrian police have arrested a 54-year-old man after he attacked two social workers with pepper spray when they found him living illegally in a private wine cellar with a woman and six children who he claimed were born in England.

Police in the province of Lower Austria were still trying to determine the identity of the children, who were aged from seven months to five years old.

Neighbours in Obritz, a small town near the Czech border, alerted local authorities last week that there was a family living illegally in a local wine cellar.

“Residents sometimes heard children’s voices in the basement,” the town’s vice-mayor, Erich Greil, told the Austrian broadcaster ORF. “As soon as (local residents) approached, it went quiet.” ...

Police also found several weapons including a gun, crossbows and compressed air weapons. ...

Local media reported that the man is a follower of the so-called Reichsbuerger, or Reich Citizens, movement. ...

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/m...th-six-english-children-arrested-1425636.html

 

[Tigerhawk]

Yes. I was, I fear, playing fast and loose in the pursuit of cheap giggles. (It's the family motto.)

I thought your family motto was (badly translated into Latin by Google Translate) - Peidcabo hoc lubo militum (bugger this for a game of soldiers - anyone who actually speaks latin, please correct me if I'm wrong)...

 

[Mythopoeika]

I thought your family motto was (badly translated into Latin by Google Translate) - Peidcabo hoc lubo militum (bugger this for a game of soldiers - anyone who actually speaks latin, please correct me if I'm wrong)...

That seems to translate as 'I'll be watching this game of soldiers'.

 

[Tigerhawk]

I thought your family motto was (badly translated into Latin by Google Translate) - Peidcabo hoc lubo militum (bugger this for a game of soldiers - anyone who actually speaks latin, please correct me if I'm wrong)...

That seems to translate as 'I'll be watching this game of soldiers'.

Well, I did put it through Google Translate, which is about as reliable as asking @Swifty how to sing opera....

 

[Stormkhan]

My favourite (bad) Latin motto is Nolite Fiere Insanum, Fite Equum, which might be taken as "Don't get mad, get even"?

"That seems to translate as 'I'll be watching this game of soldiers'." - Well, there's an Ancient Roman boardgame called Soldiers so ...

 

[ramonmercado]

Putsch plotters trial begins.

Five people are set to go on trial in Germany accused of planning a far-right coup and to kidnap the country’s health minister.

Four men aged 44 to 56 and a 75-year-old woman are accused of treason and founding or being members of a terrorist organisation.

Prosecutors say the group has links to the Reich Citizens scene that rejects the legitimacy of Germany’s postwar constitution and has similarities to the Sovereign Citizens and QAnon movements in the US.

The defendants allegedly intended to create “conditions similar to civil war” by using bombs to cause nationwide blackouts before kidnapping health minister Karl Lauterback – a prominent advocate of strict anti-Covid measures.

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/f...h-minister-and-topple-government-1476879.html

 

[ramonmercado]

More Reichsbuerger stuff.

Police officers in Germany have searched the homes of about 20 people in connection with investigations into the far-right Reich Citizens scene.

Adherents of the group reject the legitimacy of Germany’s post-war constitution and have similarities to followers of the QAnon movement in the United States.

German news agency dpa said about 280 officers raided properties in eight German states: Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, Hamburg and Lower Saxony.

Last month, police also searched homes of other Reich Citizens, or Reichsbuerger members who were allegedly connected to United Patriots, which Germany considers to be a terrorist group.

Five suspects were arrested at the time.

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/p...ters-of-far-right-reich-citizens-1555219.html

 

[ramonmercado]

The farmers are revolting and the Reichsbürgers et al are trying to hijack the protests.

Far-right groups have discussed toppling the German government as they seek to harness the anger of ongoing farmer protests over subsidy cuts.

A protest is under way in Berlin amid warnings that the agricultural movement is being infiltrated by extremists.

Our team in Germany has been working with BBC Verify to build up a picture both online and on the ground.

While the far right is piggybacking on the row, a "Germany first" narrative appears to be gaining wider traction.

As farmers blockade roads over planned subsidy cuts, there have been numerous reports of neo-Nazi or monarchist groups turning up at rallies. Telegram channels reveal fervent posts about hopes of an emerging mass resistance that could help "dismantle" the government. Small, fringe far-right groups such as the Free Saxons, The Third Way and The Homeland, have a very varied number of online followers.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned this weekend that extremists were using social media to "poison" democratic debate as he described any talk of uprisings as dangerous "nonsense".

A BBC team has been to five demonstrations in the past week and monitored several more. While many farmers and Germany's main agricultural union are eager to distance themselves from extremism, far-right imagery continues to appear.

In the eastern city of Cottbus, we saw a man being sent away from an official protest for allegedly wearing a symbol of the Reichsbürger; a disparate far right movement that rejects the modern German state. A senior organiser of the Cottbus demo told the BBC they learned later that known far-right figures had remained within the hundreds-strong crowd, which was made up of a cross-section of people well beyond the farming community.

There are also examples of a flag, known as the Landvolkbewegung, linked to an antisemitic agricultural movement from the 1920s. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67976889

 

[Steven]

Austrian police have arrested a 54-year-old man living illegally in a private wine cellar with a woman and six children who he claimed were born in England.

That Boris, eh?

 

[James_H]

More info about the Reichsbürger.

The Reichsbürger were, for years, a source of national derision, dismissed as crackpots.

Not mentioned in any of the above stuff I think but to my understanding the Reichsbürger have many parallels to the Freemen of the Land and Sovereign Citizen movements in the Anglosphere (you know, the ones who believe that saying magic words about maritime law in court will prevent them being convicted, despite it failing to work every single time), and as such are as much a group of mentally-ill conspiracy theorists keeping a mutual delusion alive as they are a political force.

 

[Frideswide]

are as much a group of mentally-ill conspiracy theorists keeping a mutual delusion alive as they are a political force.

I hope so It's the seed crystal though. Or the broken window theory of urban decline.

 

[Stormkhan]

When it comes to Sovereign Citizen etc. I think it's more influenced by content creators bandwagon-jumping in order to monetise their engagement. These creators know that for many, they tend to believe what they hear if it 'works' for them.

Along with 'hack' videos , no matter how whacky, how counter-intuitive they sound, if it apparently benefits the viewer then they'll believe it.
If they hear "This Handy Magic Chant will Get you Out of A SPEEDING ticket!" then they'll swallow it hook, line and sinker. A recent example of utter idiocy is the 'bright idea' that your energy bill is paid from your income tax. Based on the idea that it's the governments responsibility to supply you with essential resources - fuel/energy is an essential - therefore your taxes pay for energy. That the section of energy of the published in government tax breakdowns is to pay for energy infrastructure means nothing to these twits.

When it comes to quasi-political quackery, people have a high distrust of politicians in general. So, if someone comes along with a narrative which puts forward a way of 'sticking it to the man', they'll go for it.
Say someone proposes that, for instance, they have PROOF that Perkin Warbeck was Richard, Duke of York and that using a corkboard, pins and string, they can PROVE that they are the rightful King of England, then folks will get behind it. They don't care about truth, proof or whatever. They aren't interested in the legal process or even if it changes anything. They just like the idea of an 'ordinary Joe' slapping the face of the Establishment.

 

[Steven]

They don't care about truth, proof or whatever. They aren't interested in the legal process or even if it changes anything. They just like the idea of an 'ordinary Joe' slapping the face of the Establishment.

This is a key point. We even saw it detailed in our forum's 'Golden Treasure/Entente Cordiale' thread recently - it appeared that some of the people hunting the buried prize didn't care that it had already been found; they still kept on searching. It reminds me of Colin Wilson's study of 'Right Men'.

Truth matters less and less nowadays. It's especially endemic in politics - to some, it matters not if a rumour is clearly ludicrous because what really counts for them is that 'the other side' feels goaded, insulted, or hurt. Or even merely put on the defence.

 

[eziofan]

This is a key point. We even saw it detailed in our forum's 'Golden Treasure/Entente Cordiale' thread recently - it appeared that some of the people hunting the buried prize didn't care that it had already been found; they still kept on searching. It reminds me of Colin Wilson's study of 'Right Men'.

Truth matters less and less nowadays. It's especially endemic in politics - to some, it matters not if a rumour is clearly ludicrous because what really counts for them is that 'the other side' feels goaded, insulted, or hurt. Or even merely put on the defence.

This leads us down some interesting paths. The basis of democracy is 'one man, one vote' but the more I see of the general public the more I find myself doubting that this is a sensible way for the leadership of the country/world to be decided. Perhaps the idea of a global 'Illuminati' style conspiracy is not that bad after all!

 

[Stormkhan]

I'd rather improve education and social awareness and strive for a fair system of governance than to exclude a 'preferred' type of voter to select someone to govern us.
Better to educate and learn to accept responsibility than give away all responsibility.