Germany | The German coup was plotted here – New information is leaking out about the terrorist suspects

Bad Lobenstein / Erfurt

Neo-Gothic the hunting lodge rises sleepily and distantly in the middle of a small German village. According to the German authorities, an armed coup was planned here quite recently.

Now there is no other movement in the hunting lodge except for a family of three llamas who come curiously to greet the visitor.

In the wooded and hilly terrain of the state of Thuringia, it is easy to imagine members of the princely family chasing graceful deer, for centuries, to this day. On the other hand, it is hard to believe what happened here on Wednesday.

“I looked out the window at eight in the morning, and the road behind the window was full of policemen,” says a woman who lives near the hunting lodge. He doesn’t want to make his name public.

In addition to the police, there was a lot of German media. Images of heavily armed special forces and shocking news spread like wildfire everywhere.

Of course, the villagers had no idea what a prince belonging to an old princely family was Henry XIII designed in the shelter of its dense and high fences. According to the German Attorney General, Heinrich was supposed to become the ruler of Germany after the revolution.

Now he and 24 others arrested on Wednesday are suspected of being members of a terrorist organization.

Would it coup was possible? It’s hard to believe.

According to experts, the danger of serious terrorist attacks is still real when it comes to an armed group that knows the structures of society. The prosecutor is convinced that the members of the network were committed and determined and genuinely ready for armed violence.

On Friday, it became clear that many of Germany’s leading politicians were on the “enemy list” of terror suspects.

The home search was part of the largest police operation in German history. The police cordoned off the entire village until well into the afternoon. The suspect himself was arrested in Frankfurt.

“We all knew him. But he was cool and distant. Apparently, at some point, he somehow whined,” says the neighbor.

The princely family of Reuß has owned the lands and manors around the hunting lodge for centuries. During the GDR, the hunting lodge was a recreation place for the employees of the Gera waterworks, but after the reunification of Germany, the family bought it back.

State in the capital Erfurt, the Minister of the Interior belonging to the Social Democrats Georg Maier giving interviews almost on an assembly line. But he’s happy to explain the state’s situation.

He believes that there will be even more arrests when the information of those arrested can be examined.

Maier points out that until the First World War, the state of Thuringia was a region with several small states led by noble families. Shortly after World War II, the region became part of the Soviet-led dictatorship.

Democracy is young and fragile in Thuringia. And it doesn’t work well, says Maier.

The suspected terrorist network had spread all over Germany, but it is precisely in Thuringia that these problems are all too familiar.

According to Maier, the connection of the extremists caught this week to the state’s most popular party AfD (Alternative for Germany) is clear.

Last in last year’s parliamentary elections, the AfD received a 10.3 percent share of the vote in Germany as a whole, but in Thuringia it is currently supported by 25 percent of the population. National support has also increased this autumn, it is around 15 percent.

Almost as much in Thuringia, more than 20 percent, is also supported by the extreme left, or Linke. Some of those in its circle yearn for the GDR’s dictatorship or put their hopes in Russia.

However, the authorities consider right-wing radicalism more dangerous.

It is the AfD in Thuringia that is particularly strong. In the state parliament, Maier often listens to the far-right leader of the party Björn Höcken heated talks.

“Höcke is smart, and that means he avoids expressions that could have legal consequences. However, he uses expressions that refer to Nazi language.”

German criminal law specifically prohibits numerous Nazi symbols. Right-wing radicals often use roundabout expressions and puns.

According to Maier, Höcke talks, for example, about the United States as a “foreign power”, using that term raumfremde Machtwhich was used, for example, by a political scientist who belonged to the Nazi party Carl Schmitt.

Höcke talks about pensioners or the unemployed with the terms “German pensioners” or “German unemployed”, referring to ethnic origin. Höcke talked about corona vaccinations as human experiments.

According to Maier, in everyday demonstrations and political discussions in the state, the AfD does not distinguish itself as a more moderate group of the Reichsbürgerswhich included terror suspects arrested in a historically large operation on Wednesday.

“It may be that we will reach a point where the AfD has to be banned,” says Maier.

According to him, such a step would be in the offing if the current investigation revealed that members of the AfD had also armed themselves for a coup d’état.

Domestic intelligence has already classified the party as an anti-democratic extremist movement at the state level.

I’ll explain For Maier, it is difficult for some Finns to understand the limits of freedom of speech in Germany and how an elected party can be classified as an extremist movement.

A large number of voters and activists hardly support overthrowing the state with terrorism?

“If I were in Finland, I might think the same. But it’s different in Germany. Nazism was invented here,” he says.

Maier also refers to the neo-Nazi terrorist group NSU, which was active in the neighboring state of Saxony in the 2000s, and murdered nine people with an immigrant background and one police officer.

“We cannot say that this (Nazi-inspired speech) belongs to democracy.”

Maier says he knows many AfD voters. For many, the reason for the choice is protest, dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. He says that he has a lot of discussions with them about Russia, for example.

AfD’s basic line includes blaming NATO for Russia’s attack on Ukraine. The party strongly opposes sanctions against Russia. This thinking has grown in Germany during the autumn.

Maier’s According to AfD, it seeks to break democracy from within and mocks and distorts all the things on which German democracy is built.

According to Maier, much has been accomplished. The far-right rock concerts that used to attract audiences of up to 6,000-7,000 people no longer exist in the state.

The concerts were stopped by interfering with the regulations regarding alcohol sales and noise limits, so that the public’s interest stopped. According to Maier, it was a difficult road because the concerts were based on freedom of assembly.

“The Nazis take advantage of the freedoms and principles of the rule of law, which they would remove if they came to power,” says Maier

Neo-Nazi gangs were in the arms, drug, human and real estate trade, he says.

“Now many of them are in prison.”

Since there has been a relatively large amount of right-wing radicalism in the police, the training of police officers has been improved, according to Maier.

“They haven’t been paying close attention in history class at school, and now they have access to guns. That’s why training is fundamental.”

Now in Thuringia, police training includes a period of several days in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

“So that they realize that extremism, especially fascism, is something they have to fight against.”

Historical a major police operation last Wednesday introduced many to this German specialty for the first time: as reichsbürgers that is, to the conspiracy theorists who call themselves national citizens.

The thinking of the Reichsbürgers includes, for example, anti-Semitism: faith to the deep state and to the worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

“Some people a year ago were thought to be simply lazy, that they just don’t have everything at home,” says Maier of the Reichsbürgers.

They do not recognize the Paris Peace Treaty that ended World War II, nor the Federal Republic of Germany as a sovereign state, but live in their minds according to the law that existed before World War II. Because they think Germany is controlled by an Allied conspiracy, they try to fight it.

In 2016, the police searched the home of a man belonging to the movement in Bavaria. A man who owned 32 guns responded to the arrival of the police by opening fire. One policeman was killed. After that reichsbürgers have not been seen as mere quirks, says Maier.

According to him, more than 80 weapons have been confiscated in Thuringia this year and last year from reichsbürger.

According to the authorities, there are about 21,000 in Germany reichsbürger. According to Maier, there are about a thousand of them in Thuringia, and the number is growing. According to him, following them is often not very difficult.

“They are waving flags. It’s a bit like the flag of the southern states in the US. There are, of course, other tips.”

The black-white-red flag was the flag of the German Empire before the world wars.

According to Maier, conspiracy theorists, corona skeptics, friends of Russia and AfD are all more or less the same people in the state.

He emphasizes that the majority of people in Thuringia also defend democracy. He hopes that the state will have a majority government in the future.

“Then we could show that democracy can work very well at best. It would be poison for radical opponents of democracy.”