Reich citizens planned a coup: fantasies of overthrow

A nobleman, an ex-AfD member of the Bundestag and former soldiers – they are said to have planned a coup. After a raid, eight of the 25 suspects were remanded in custody. The authorities had been investigating for months.

Attorney General Peter Frank is used to some dangerous madness and insanity. His prosecutors investigate terrorists of all stripes: neo-Nazis, Islamists, left-wing extremists. For some time, however, Germany’s chief prosecutor has also been increasingly concerned with so-called Reich citizens and conspiracy ideologues who are convinced that the Federal Republic either does not really exist – or should be abolished by force and converted into a monarchy. The scene of the Reich citizens is becoming more and more violent, Frank warned in Karlsruhe in the summer.

In the early morning, the Federal Public Prosecutor took action against suspects from this spectrum. Police units, including GSG9 special forces from the federal police, moved in nationwide and searched more than 130 houses, apartments and offices in eleven federal states. So far, 51 people have been accused, and 25 have been arrested. According to the Attorney General, eight of them were already in custody in the early afternoon. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), several state criminal investigation offices and authorities for the protection of the constitution had previously conducted extensive investigations. At the BKA, the procedure is called “shadow”.

The raid, which is one of the largest searches in the history of the Federal Republic, is aimed at a widespread but well-structured network of Reich citizens and conspiracy ideologues. You are suspected of having founded or supported a terrorist organization. The group is said to have planned to use force to destroy state order and bring about an overthrow by force of arms.

The alleged conspirators are said to include a prince, an ex-AfD member of parliament and judge from Berlin and a former AfD city councilor from Saxony. Likewise, several ex-Bundeswehr soldiers, including former members of the Special Forces Command (KSK) and the paratroopers, but also doctors and entrepreneurs.

WDR, NDR and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” have been researching the case for months. The investigations by the security authorities began in the spring of this year after initial information from the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Hesse. There they had become aware of a nobleman: Heinrich XIII. Prince von Reuss, 71 years old, real estate entrepreneur based in Frankfurt am Main and squire of a hunting lodge in Bad Lobenstein in East Thuringia.

Reuss has been under observation for some time

For some time Henry XIII. Prince Reuss, he too has now been ordered into custody, has been classified as a Reich citizen by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and is under surveillance. The investigators believe that he is working on a bunker with autonomous electricity and water supply on his property in Thuringia and has gathered a kind of “council of like-minded people around him. The nobleman is said to have achieved cult status in the “Reichsbürger” scene after he Appeared at a conference in Zurich in 2019. There he made no secret of his convictions: the financial industry destroyed the monarchy, the First World War was instigated by Freemasons, today’s Federal Republic is not a sovereign state and the Basic Law is not a constitution, but by the Allies Written to dominate the Germans, his extended family recently publicly distanced themselves from him because of his worldview.

In March, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution found that apparently several people from the Reich citizen milieu and the spectrum of self-proclaimed lateral thinkers were networking and apparently forging dangerous plans. Some of those involved are said to have not just left it at mere fantasies of a coup, but are said to have actually prepared militant actions. Even corresponding declarations of commitment are said to have been signed by some members of the network. According to the findings of the investigators, among other things, there should have been an armed attack on the Bundestag, an impending martial law and the proclamation of a new government and the establishment of a new German army.

In wiretapped telephone calls, it was said that not only the prince was behind such an attempted coup, but a powerful organization, the “Alliance”. Everything is prepared, satellite phones have already been purchased and distributed to the most important players. In addition, uniforms for the new military were commissioned. The alleged network is said to have planned to install a new government around Reuss and a military wing. A former AfD city councilor from Saxony, who is said to be a marksman and legal gun owner, was apparently supposed to procure the “material” for the campaign. Investigators assume that weapons were meant.

The scenario is said to have sounded as absurd as it was dangerous: a commando consisting of former soldiers was supposed to storm the German parliament and take members of the Bundestag away in handcuffs. A code word was then to be emitted over the radio, whereupon “blackouts” were to be triggered. Ultimately, the government was to be overthrown. That “Day X” was supposed to take place in March, then in early September.

Is it all just pipe dreams?

Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a former AfD member of the Bundestag, may have played a key role in the plan. As a former member of parliament, she continues to have access to parliament in accordance with house rules. Malsack-Winkemann has so far been assigned to the middle-class, moderate camp in the AfD, but according to party colleagues, he is said to have recently leaned more towards the right wing. After leaving the Bundestag, she successfully sued the Berlin Senate administration, which wanted to send her into early retirement as a judge, because she had made generalizing and derogatory statements in the Bundestag about refugees.

The security authorities became concerned that some of the suspects might already be so radicalized that they would, if necessary, strike on their own. The BKA officials, who were commissioned with the investigation by the Federal Public Prosecutor in late summer, were particularly concerned that the suspected terror planners apparently also included several former Bundeswehr soldiers and legal gun owners. For example, a former lieutenant colonel in the Bundeswehr, who was once the commander of parachute battalion 251 in Calw, where the special forces command (KSK) was later founded. He used to be a high-ranking officer in the GDR’s National People’s Army, but later had to leave the Bundeswehr because he had been convicted of violating the Weapons Act and embezzlement.

Ex-paratroopers from Thuringia

The accused also include an ex-paratrooper from Thuringia, who is said to have served under this ex-commander in Calw and who today offers survival training in the forest. According to the findings of the investigators, he is said to have taken on the task of recruiting other ex-soldiers for the storming of the Bundestag. It is said to have primarily concerned members of the paratroopers and the KSK.

A former colonel of the KSK from Bavaria, who appeared in uniform last year as a flood helper in the Ahr valley and against whom investigations were being carried out for usurping his position, is said to also belong to the network. The ex-soldier, who has been retired since 2016, is said to have been a guest speaker at events of the lateral thinker scene several times. He is said to have once demanded that the KSK go to Berlin and “clean up” the parliament there.

Further investigations will have to show how specific the plans for a “Day X” were. So far, the presumption of innocence applies to all of the accused, and the said persons have not yet been available for a statement. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is also investigating whether the alleged network around Reuss sought contact with government agencies in Russia. The nobleman is said to have been observed visiting the Russian Consulate General in Leipzig. So far, however, it is unclear what the reason for the visit was.