Since early morning, officers have been searching the homes of right-wingers and conspiracy tellers nationwide in one of the largest raids in history. The alleged terrorist network is suspected of having planned a coup.
The largest raid against the Reich bourgeois milieu has been underway nationwide since six o’clock on Wednesday morning. About 3,000 officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office, the Federal Police and the State Criminal Police Offices are searching 137 objects in eleven federal states on behalf of the Attorney General. It is about the suspicion of the “formation of a terrorist organization”.
According to information from Suddeutscher Zeitung, NDR and WDR, the proceedings are currently directed against 51 suspects. 25 people were provisionally arrested, including one person in Austria. The GSG 9, the special unit of the federal police, even moved to at least two suspects because the investigators suspected they had firearms.
The alleged right-wing terrorist cell is accused, among other things, of having planned an armed attack on the Bundestag, first in mid-March and then in early September of this year, which apparently even ended in a coup d’état. The suspects wanted to set up a new government and a new army.
The main suspects include a member of a former aristocratic family, who has long been attributed to the Reich bourgeois milieu by investigators, and a former AfD member of the Bundestag. What makes the cell on the right so dangerous from the point of view of the investigators: Among the conspirators are several former officers of special forces of the Bundeswehr. So-called Reich citizens recognize neither the existence of the Federal Republic nor its government or laws.
Minister of Justice Buschmann: “Democracy is defensive”
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann called the search operation an “anti-terror operation”, as he wrote on Twitter. There is a suspicion that “an armed attack on constitutional bodies” was planned. “Democracy is defensive,” wrote the FDP politician.
The search operation is one of the largest in the history of the Federal Republic. In the past few months, the Federal Criminal Police Office, several state criminal investigation offices and authorities for the protection of the constitution had closely observed the group. Numerous phones were monitored, people were observed and their activities on the Internet tracked. According to information from WDR, NDR and SZ, the BKA is investigating under the name “Shadow”. The searches are said to continue throughout the day. The main suspects could not be reached for comment.