The head of a noble family characterized the 71-year-old prince, suspected of coup plotting, as “a confused old man who has been misled by conspiracy theories.”
7.12. 20:42
in Germany woke up to startling news on Wednesday when authorities said they had arrested more than 20 members of a far-right terrorist group. It was suspected that their intention was to seize power in Germany and establish a new kingdom in its place, led by a prince Henry XIII.
Among the first natural questions for Germans digesting the news was: who the hell is Prince Heinrich XIII?
Many could run to look for information on Wikipedia. About the man in the online encyclopedia German article was at least still so stubborn from the beginning of the evening that before Wednesday, not many people had considered him the future leader of a European power.
In Wikipedia, he is said to be a 71-year-old prince who belongs to the historical princely family of Reuß. Heinrich XIII has lived in Frankfurt am Main, worked in real estate and owns a hunting castle in the state of Thuringia.
Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office said in a statementthat Heinrich XIII was one of the key leaders of the conspiracy project and that he had been in contact with some entities of the Russian Federation.
According to the prosecutor, Heinrich would like to renegotiate Germany’s place in the world, and Russia would be important in the negotiations because it is one of the victors of the Second World War. According to the news agency Reuters, the Russian presidential administration announced that Russia had no part in the suspected hijacking project.
On Wednesday, Die Zeit magazine published a quick summary compiled by four journalists on its website of the article about the “coup prince”. According to the magazine, Heinrich XIII is an “enjoyer” who has been married to an unnamed model and who likes fast cars and Formula 1 races.
According to a source interviewed by the newspaper, Heinrich XIII became an “enemy of democracy” possibly in the 1990s, when he tried to get possession of his family’s property, which had been lost after the Second World War, through legal battles and with varying success after German reunification.
of the noble family of Reuß the name has been associated with several historical small states in the area of the current state of Thuringia since the 12th century. The last ruler of the family of Heinrich XIII Heinrich XXVII had to give up the power of his principality in 1918, when the German Empire fell in the revolution that started at the end of the First World War and Germany became a republic.
In 2019, Heinrich XIII gave a seminar speech in Switzerland, where he complained about the mistreatment of his family and said, for example, that the First World War was a Jewish conspiracy.
According to the German public prosecutor, Heinrich XIII and other people who tried the coup are supporting two conspiratorial movements: Qanon and the Reichsbürgers.
Qanon, especially in the United States, has spread anti-Semitic and in many directions, such as opposing pedophiles and the former president of the United States Donald Trump’s to admire, a wandering tortuous tangle of thoughts.
The Reichsbürgers, on the other hand do not recognize Germany’s current form of government, legislation or institutions. According to the Reichsbürgerei, Germany has no constitution and is not a sovereign state. In their opinion, Germany should be what it was during the German Empire from 1871 to 1918.
“The so-called Federal Republic of Germany is Hitler’s Legal successor to Germany, not the sovereign German Empire. For this reason alone, Germany does not have any sovereign structure”, Heinrich XIII stated in his seminar speech in 2019.
He appealed to the United States that with its help a “peace treaty for Germany” and “peace for the whole world” could be achieved, i.e. historical wrongs would be corrected. According to Die Zeit, it is possible that for Heinrich XIII, the coup project involved “personal financial dimensions” in addition to political goals.
The BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, estimated four years ago that there were about 18,000 supporters of the Reichsbürger idea in Germany, of which about 950 were “far-right extremists”. Deutsche Welle channel told that the number of Reichsbürgers increased by 80 percent in just a couple of years.
According to Die Zeit, Heinrich XIII has become a “little star” among the Reichsbürger thanks to his speeches on social media.
German broadcasting company Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk MDR told on his website in August, that the Reuß family has distanced itself from Heinrich XIII because of his extremism.
“I’m afraid so [Heinrich XIII] is a confused old man who has been misled by conspiracy theories,” the head of the family, Prince Heinrich XIV, told MDR.
Heinrich XIV also said that Heinrich XIII has not been in contact with his relatives for 14 years and that the prince has cut off contact of his own accord.
The Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday evening, referring to the German media, that the police raided Heinrich XIII’s hunting castle, which was searched for, among other things, weapons.
According to the German Prosecutor’s Office, Heinrich XIII and associates are a terrorist organization that was founded no later than November 2021.
“Members are aware that this project can only be implemented militarily and with violence against state representatives. It would also include homicides,” the prosecutor informed.
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