Raids in the Reichsbürger scene
Five more arrests in connection with the allegedly planned Lauterbach kidnapping
Police officers have taken action against suspected Reichsbürger supporters in several federal states (symbolic image)
© Hannes P. Albert / DPA
They probably wanted to kidnap Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and cause a nationwide power outage. Members of a Reichsbürger group are on trial in Koblenz. Some suspected accomplices were now visited by the police.
The investigations against the suspected terrorist group “United Patriots” are becoming increasingly widespread. On Tuesday, the police searched the apartments of so-called Reich citizens who are associated with the group during raids in several federal states and arrested suspects. According to the information, several arrest warrants were executed.
The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that a suspect now arrested in Wolfratshausen had agreed to take part in the planned kidnapping of Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and to obtain firearms in Croatia for this purpose. In Baden-Württemberg, officers from the Rhineland-Palatinate police arrested a person who is suspected of having provided the association with a server for conspiratorial communication. He is also said to have participated in the administration of a closed chat group.
Another suspect is said to have instructed members of the group how to operate radios at a meeting. The investigators also accuse him of using chat groups to call for participation in association meetings.
Reich citizens wanted to overthrow the government
Four men between the ages of 44 and 56 and a 76-year-old have already been charged before the Koblenz Higher Regional Court because of a planned coup in Germany and the intended kidnapping of Lauterbach. You are accused of having founded a terrorist organization or of having been a member of it. The group called “United Patriots” is said to have planned a political overthrow and a new constitution based on the model of the German Empire in 1871.
Lauterbach was supposed to have been kidnapped after explosive attacks on the power supply that resulted in power outages lasting weeks. The group wanted to use the resulting chaos to depose the government and install a “leader”. The defendants are said to have accepted the death of people during their actions.
After the raids on X became known, Lauterbach said: “I would like to thank the investigators, to whom I probably owe my life.”
Reich citizens are people who do not recognize the Federal Republic and its democratic structures. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution counted around 23,000 people across Germany in 2022 as part of the scene of Reich citizens and so-called self-administrators, 2,000 more than in the previous year.