Germany arrests 25 over right wing coup plot

[lizkat]

Germany says it foiled a far-right coup plot. Here's what we know

The group hoped to replace Germany's government and install a new head of state known as Prince Heinrich XIII, prosecutors say. Some 3,000 officers were involved in Wednesday's police operation.

www.npr.org

A bit too real for a reality show, in case followers of the perps thought that's what it was all about.

The people arrested embraced a fantasy based on conspiracy theories and were united by a hatred of democracy, Interior Minister Nancy Fraeser said.

Officials say the suspects include members of several far-right extremist groups and QAnon followers, and people who adhere to the Reichsbürger or "Reich citizens" movement, which holds that Germany's current constitution is invalid.

The group rejected Germany's existing government as being tainted by "deep state" operatives, according to the prosecutor's office, referring to a conspiracy view that has found adherents in several countries, including the U.S.

Organizers started forming a leadership council and adopted a structure seeking to mirror a federal government, Frank said. Members had been named to operate as the new justice minister and in other roles, with Heinrich tapped to be the future head of state, according to the prosecutor's office.

The group also has a military wing, Frank said, stating that their plan includes the creation of a new military.

"In the past, some of the members of this military arm were active serving members of the German armed forces," he said.

 

[lizkat]

More from The Guardian

German police raids target group accused of far-right plot to overthrow state

Minor aristocrat, an ex-paratrooper and a former AfD MP among those detained in operation

www.theguardian.com

As details of the group’s members emerged, they revealed what one investigator referred to as a “motley crew” – from a coronavirus-denying roofer to a gourmet cook, whose son-in-law is a professional footballer, a pilot with a German airline and a tenor who was due to be installed as culture minister after the group’s takeover.

German politicians expressed their relief that the plot had been thwarted, though Sara Nanni, of the Greens, said initial indications were that the group might have lacked the means or wherewithal to carry out their plan.

“More details keep coming to light that raise doubts about whether these people were even clever enough to plan and carry out such a coup,” she said in a post on the social media network Mastadon. However, she acknowledged that “no matter how crude their ideas and how hopeless their plans”, even the attempt was dangerous.

And from the Wall Street Journal (paywall removed)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, unrelated groups with diverse political backgrounds began coalescing around their rejection of the state and its institutions, according to the German domestic intelligence agency. The phenomenon gave rise to increasingly violent protests, which culminated in an attempt to storm parliament in 2020.

“They do not have classic ideology or political rallying point,” an official with the agency said. “They include far-right extremists…cults, pro-Russian agitators, anti-Semites and all manner of people from across the spectrum, united only in their rejection of the state, the democratic order and its institutions.”

News of Wednesday’s arrests prompted alarmed comments by politicians and civil-society representatives, including Jewish organizations that had been warning about in increase in anti-Semitic attacks in the country.

The alleged terror group, whose suspected leaders included a former elite paratrooper commander, had been attempting to recruit police and armed-forces members, and had sought to set up cells across Germany to help it install and maintain a military government, according to the prosecutor.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

There’s nothing more dangerous than insecure self-entitled white men. I’d say in general and throughout history, but especially now. Basically centuries of insecure white men at a permanent code red occasionally punctuated by a body count in the millions.

 

[lizkat]

There’s nothing more dangerous than insecure self-entitled white men. I’d say in general and throughout history, but especially now. Basically centuries of insecure white men at a permanent code red occasionally punctuated by a body count in the millions.

Whatever happened to just listening to a ballgame after dinner or going down to the cellar to refinish another old table or chair...?

We seem to have these interludes in between major wars, where people just want peace and quiet, but there always comes that day when someone says well not this peaceful or quiet and decides to go have it out with someone down the way...

This group seems to have a mix of hangers-on and more dangerous plotters as well as some international pot stirrers. Ever the way, eh? The leaders manage to find the stooges, marks and useful idiots... and those of like mind who are mere anarchists masquerading as populists... as well as those who only meant to express political dissent but whose aims are co-opted and who are sometimes drawn into activism that others intend to convert to a violent upheaval of existing government. The ones so easy to lock up and charge with crimes later on...

Something like 130 raids were conducted in 11 German locations and a couple of foreign states as well, so this was not just some social media clique being blowhards again about something or other.

Always tricky for a democracy to know where to draw the line but when people willing to commit violence in accordance with their bluster start infiltrating military groups or intel agencies, then it becomes less difficult for a government to decide that everyone's freedoms are threatened.

The question can be whether reason for a crackdown is fabricated. But in this case it would seem that the reasons for putting a stop to it have been building up for quite awhile in Germany. Same could be said of the USA once the 1/6 insurrection blew the complacency off our assumed handle on domestic terrorism. It was easy for most people to dismiss the wacky tales that would surface now and then about people acting out their reaction to Q-Anon conspiracy theories. Not so easy after 1/6/21.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Whatever happened to just listening to a ballgame after dinner or going down to the cellar to refinish another old table or chair...?

We seem to have these interludes in between major wars, where people just want peace and quiet, but there always comes that day when someone says well not this peaceful or quiet and decides to go have it out with someone down the way...

This group seems to have a mix of hangers-on and more dangerous plotters as well as some international pot stirrers. Ever the way, eh? The leaders manage to find the stooges, marks and useful idiots... and those of like mind who are mere anarchists masquerading as populists... as well as those who only meant to express political dissent but whose aims are co-opted and who are sometimes drawn into activism that others intend to convert to a violent upheaval of existing government. The ones so easy to lock up and charge with crimes later on...

Something like 130 raids were conducted in 11 German locations and a couple of foreign states as well, so this was not just some social media clique being blowhards again about something or other.

Always tricky for a democracy to know where to draw the line but when people willing to commit violence in accordance with their bluster start infiltrating military groups or intel agencies, then it becomes less difficult for a government to decide that everyone's freedoms are threatened.

The question can be whether reason for a crackdown is fabricated. But in this case it would seem that the reasons for putting a stop to it have been building up for quite awhile in Germany. Same could be said of the USA once the 1/6 insurrection blew the complacency off our assumed handle on domestic terrorism. It was easy for most people to dismiss the wacky tales that would surface now and then about people acting out their reaction to Q-Anon conspiracy theories. Not so easy after 1/6/21.

Economics. Global neoliberalism has extracted wealth to the top to the breaking point while creating new ways to siphon even more wealth up that provides absolutely zero benefit to anybody else. Non-white non-Christians are used to getting economically hosed. When it happens to white Christians they get mad. Then the exploiter class directs them on who to blame. I think we all know who that is as this pattern has repeated itself over and over and over.

 

[lizkat]

Things have to get pretty bad before the typical xenophobic response to oppression is broken in favor of disparate groups working together to break the pattern and establish a power center.

In the USA for instance, we saw that breaking point happen once in the 1912 "Bread and Roses" strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The workforce was ethnically divided, mostly immigrants, mostly female. Lack of fluency in English or another common language also favored the owners. The immigrants were Polish, German, Syrian (and a lot of Lebanese who were often called "Syrian" by non-immigrant workers), French Canadian, Lithuanian... and of course there were also religious differences.

So the chances of different ethnic and religious groups acting in concert to force owners to improve pay and working conditions had seemed remote in 1912, but the common ground of all being in families struggling to survive without food security, decent shelter or time to care for and enjoy their kids finally made the difference, along with a few women notable for their activism in a time before women even had the vote. They got the men involved and shoulder to shoulder the differences fell away.

What I've never really understood is why people blame other workers for their own plight. "They're coming for your jobs, your homes," all that stuff. It's not the other worker who is the problem. It's the guy who owns the plant and is trying to pay all his workers a pittance no matter who the hell they are or what color or religion they do or don't have in common. Why do we keep buying into appeals to narrow tribalism? OK maybe it's partly instinctive, sticking with the most familiar.... but we've had thousands of years to evolve and sometimes seems like not much progress has been made, even if thousands of years is not a long time in terms of evolution of a species.

Anyway in our own times we are stupid when we fall yet again for the idea that some other person in our same or lower circumstance is the one to strike out at when there's no good reason for being economically downtrodden. But "otherness" as the problem seems the message that some of the power-hungry and solely profit-minded of our era hope we'll keep buying. God forbid the rest of us should have to discover "no wall high enough" together in our common poverty sometime as this scenario of unfettered capitalism plays out yet again. I thought we had figured that out back when the Gilded Age ended up not working out for enough Americans...

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

The irony is fascism sympathizers like to promote themselves as tough guys but they are actually too much of a pussy to go after the real people causing economic destruction and always target the weak.

 

[KingOfPain]

Some more details that I found out…
Three of the 25 arrested had somewhat higher positions:
One is some kind of a prince and they wanted to make him the new head of state. But his family said he wasn‘t quite right in his head.
One woman is a former judge and a former member of the Bundestag, of course she belongs to the AfD party (I still wonder how long it‘ll take until the party is forbidden as it happened with the NPD). They wanted to make her the AG.
Leader of their combat wing was a former KSK officer (special forces of the Bundeswehr).
So it wasn‘t just some guys having funny ideas while drinking beer in a pub.
The girlfriend of the prince was also arrested. She‘s Russian and supposedly should have made contact to the Russian Federation. After overthrowing the government they wanted to negotiate with the victorious powers of WWII, with Russia as the main focus. That would have gone well…
Given that they apparently tried to recruit police officers and probably even soldiers, I think this might be far from over…

EDIT: If you can read German, the official press release of the Generalbundesanwalt has a lot of details (although not the full names of the arrested people):

Homepage - Festnahmen von 25 mutmaßlichen Mitgliedern und Unterstützern einer terroristischen Vereinigung sowie Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen in elf Bundesländern bei insgesamt 52 Beschuldigten

Festnahmen von 25 mutmaßlichen Mitgliedern und Unterstützern einer terroristischen Vereinigung sowie Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen in elf Bundesländern bei insgesamt 52 Beschuldigten

www.generalbundesanwalt.de

 

[Alli]

What I've never really understood is why people blame other workers for their own plight.

Because throughout time, people have needed an “other” to be below them so there would be someone to blame. Most of these people wind up as Republicans in the US.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Cons are probably reading this with empathy to the arrested.

For the rational folks, it’s important to realize this is what other countries think about us when they headlines that came from January 6, and from Trump’s lies.

 

[KingOfPain]

Wikipedia now has an article about this:

2022 German coup d'état plot - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And another one on the German language branch:

Patriotische Union – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

So there's even more current and former officials involved. It's a bit disturbing that people, who feel that the current government is illegitimate, actually hold or held a position in that government.

 

[Cmaier]

Wikipedia now has an article about this:

2022 German coup d'état plot - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And another one on the German language branch:

Patriotische Union – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

So there's even more current and former officials involved. It's a bit disturbing that people, who feel that the current government is illegitimate, actually hold or held a position in that government.

Ich glaube, ich brauche einen königlichen Titel. Vielleicht Graf der Transistoren. Oder Herzog von Käse. Sowas in der Art.

Prinz Wie-Heisst-Er ist verrückt.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Some more details that I found out…
Three of the 25 arrested had somewhat higher positions:
One is some kind of a prince and they wanted to make him the new head of state. But his family said he wasn‘t quite right in his head.
One woman is a former judge and a former member of the Bundestag, of course she belongs to the AfD party (I still wonder how long it‘ll take until the party is forbidden as it happened with the NPD). They wanted to make her the AG.
Leader of their combat wing was a former KSK officer (special forces of the Bundeswehr).
So it wasn‘t just some guys having funny ideas while drinking beer in a pub.
The girlfriend of the prince was also arrested. She‘s Russian and supposedly should have made contact to the Russian Federation. After overthrowing the government they wanted to negotiate with the victorious powers of WWII, with Russia as the main focus. That would have gone well…
Given that they apparently tried to recruit police officers and probably even soldiers, I think this might be far from over…

EDIT: If you can read German, the official press release of the Generalbundesanwalt has a lot of details (although not the full names of the arrested people):

Homepage - Festnahmen von 25 mutmaßlichen Mitgliedern und Unterstützern einer terroristischen Vereinigung sowie Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen in elf Bundesländern bei insgesamt 52 Beschuldigten

Festnahmen von 25 mutmaßlichen Mitgliedern und Unterstützern einer terroristischen Vereinigung sowie Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen in elf Bundesländern bei insgesamt 52 Beschuldigten

www.generalbundesanwalt.de

Apparently the Reichsbürger "movement" has over 21,000 members has has been only growing with time. There are different factions so its not since Prince Heinrich XIII and these others represent the entire group, but it's not exactly a small group of people that would potentially be interested in following along. I would imagine however, most were not aware of this plot. I would agree a former judge/politician, military commander, and an irrelevant member of past royalty isn't insignificant, but it's not exactly the A-team.

Anyways, I'm glad Germany shut this down before it was allowed to potentially turn into a 1/6 type deal.

Ich glaube, ich brauche einen königlichen Titel. Vielleicht Graf der Transistoren. Oder Herzog von Käse. Sowas in der Art.

Prinz Wie-Heisst-Er ist verrückt.

Agreed, your highness.

 

[KingOfPain]

Reichsbürger, unfortunately, isn't a new thing. But mostly they are weird people, who don't agree with the government, and they don't seem to be that organized.
COVID restirctions made things worse, because those people felt that their freedom was reduced by a government, which they consider illegitimate anyway.
One article mentions that the 1/6 Capitol attack might have inspired their idea to storm the Reichstag. I'm not sure if that's true, but it certainly might have helped to fuel some ideas.

But this kind of organization is way beyond what has been revealed previously. These aren't weird individuals who shout "Don't step on my lawn or I'll shoot you!" These are politicians, former police officers, and former soldiers, who apparently had a lot of money and weapons and were willing to put it into action.

As for Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuß: If what I read in the Wikipedia article about him is true, he is truely crazy.
He claimed that WWI was instrumented to increase the Jewish population, WTF!?!
He claimed that the Rothschilds and Free Masons organized wars to eliminate monarchies, yeah right...

As for a title for Cliff, it should be a bit more elaborate. How about this one:
Freiherr von und zu Halbleiter