The group that planned a coup in Germany hid weapons

A member of the special forces during the arrest on Wednesday of the leader of the organization, Prince Henry XIII of Reuss. / AFP

Justice will prosecute 22 of the ultras detained for terrorism and the remaining three for collaboration with an armed gang

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office, responsible for the fight against terrorism, announced Thursday that of the 25 arrested for preparing a coup in Germany, 22 will be prosecuted, among other charges, as suspected of being part of a terrorist organization. The remaining three are accused of collaboration with an armed gang. They have opened a summary and another 29 people related to the extremist group formed mostly by the so-called ‘Reichsbürger’, literally ‘Citizens of the Reich’, who do not recognize the existence of the Federal Republic, refer to the imperial legislation of a century ago and intend to end democracy and the rule of law.

The operation is still open and the searches continue, warned a spokesman for the Prosecutor’s Office. In the raid carried out on Wednesday, more than 3,000 police officers proceeded to search more than 130 houses, homes, offices, warehouses and garages of the suspects in 11 German federal states, as well as in Austria and Italy. Among the detainees is the alleged leader and ideologue of the group, Prince Henry XIII of Reuss zu Köstritz, a 71-year-old nobleman considered one of the leaders of the ‘Reichsbürger’, owner in Thuringia of a hunting palace in which they held several clandestine and conspiratorial meetings.

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The group, which includes soldiers and service and reserve police, planned to storm Parliament in a plenary session with two dozen armed people to arrest and take prisoner as many members of the federal government and House deputies as possible. in order to end the rule of law and establish an autocratic regime headed by Prince Henry XIII. The president of the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA), Holger Münch, pointed out that so far there are 54 people implicated in the conspiracy, but that their number could increase.

“We have identified some more people whose relationship with that group we still do not know,” Münch said in television statements, in which he stressed that the German state was not threatened at any time and stressed that the members of the terrorist organization They were closely watched for months. “It must not be assumed that a group that has a two-digit number, perhaps a small three, is not capable of threatening the state system,” warned the head of the BKA, however, who considers the detained conspiracy group extremely dangerous. when defending “irrational convictions”. Münch revealed that in 50 of the more than 130 registered properties the agents found weapons. “That shows that it is not something innocent,” he stressed.
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Meanwhile, the Berlin judge arrested in the operation will be “completely removed from service”, as announced by the administration of Justice in the German capital. Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, 58, was to assume the portfolio of Justice in the government devised by the coup group. The senator for Justice of the city-state of Berlin, Lena Kreck, announced this Thursday that the Court of the German capital has opened a disciplinary file against the judge, who from now on will have “physical difficulties” to practice her profession and that the local government will do everything possible to prevent him from returning to work.

in pretrial detention

It is not the first time that the Berlin authorities have tried to get rid of Malksack-Winkemann, who was arrested at her home in Berlin and is already in pretrial detention. Last October, the city’s Administrative Court ruled in her favor by rejecting a lawsuit to force her to retire after, as a Bundestag deputy for the ultranationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), she intervened before the parliamentary plenary session and shelled out a whole series of xenophobic and racist arguments that those responsible for the Berlin Justice considered unacceptable and reason for his immediate dismissal.

The cause is already at a higher level. The accused of coup was until now a judge of the 19th Civil Chamber in Berlin, responsible for real estate matters. The head of Justice of the German capital pointed out that even before her arrest she considered Malsack-Winkemann an “incendiary and dangerous person” and that “since yesterday – on Wednesday – it is known how dangerous he can be.” In view of the case in which she is accused, it is more than unlikely that she will ever return to practice, Kreck said.

Nor will she step on the premises of the German Parliament again, in which she was a deputy for AfD in the last legislature, between 2017 and 2021. The parliamentary Police received the order this Thursday to prohibit entry into the Reichstag, the historic seat of the Bundestag, and other buildings of the legislative body to the suspect of coup, who apparently had a special card despite not being re-elected in the last elections.