Crackdown in the far-right antivax movement in Germany. The authorities targeted 5 suspects, all Germans, aged between 41 and 55, four were arrested while these people were planning “violent attacks” in the country and kidnappings of “public figures”, among them the popular Minister of Health Social Democrat Karl Lauterbach, learned AFP from a ministerial source.
This messaging network called “United Patriots” aimed at the destruction “of the German democratic system”, specified the public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz and the police of Rhineland-Palatinate in a joint press release.
Gold bars and firearms seized
The suspects, arrested the day before during extensive searches, had notably planned to attack the electricity networks to cause “a long-term power outage throughout the territory”, which would have, in their minds, created the conditions for a “civil war”. Authorities had been investigating the group, their founders and supporters in several parts of the country since October 2021.
During Wednesday’s raid, they notably seized firearms and ammunition, gold bars and silver coins, currencies worth more than 10,000 euros, as well as mobile phones, counterfeit vaccination certificates against Covid-19, or even several documents written on their plans to overthrow the state.
This far-right movement, particularly mobilized since the pandemic
Police operations targeting the radical fringe of the anti-health restrictions movement have multiplied in the country, which has placed far-right violence at the forefront of threats to public order, ahead of the jihadist risk. This movement has been particularly mobilized in Germany since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and is active in Telegram groups making threats against elected officials or during demonstrations. The murder in June 2019 by a neo-Nazi activist of Walter Lübcke, elected from the conservative party which defended the policy of welcoming migrants from former Chancellor Angela Merkel, had also been an electric shock in the country.
In early April, the German authorities carried out a major sweep in far-right terrorist circles, as part of a broader investigation, involving police and military intelligence services since 2019. Four suspects of the “Knockout” group 51” were then arrested. Ongoing investigations also target the far-right group “Atomwaffen Division Deutschland”, the German branch of the American neo-Nazi movement.
On Wednesday, the federal prosecutor’s office announced the indictment of a young German sympathizer of this movement suspected of having wanted to trigger “a war of races” in Germany via attacks with explosives and firearms.