A Wednesday statement from the federal public prosecutor said the members of the group, which was founded in November 2021, subscribed to a range of conspiracy theories including QAnon and the right-wing extremist Reichsbürger movement, which denies the existence of the modern German state. “The accused are united by a deep rejection of state institutions,” it said.
The group was prepared to use violence and accepted that deaths would happen, the statement added. Its central “council” was headed by an individual named as Heinrich XIII P.R., who had reached out to Russian representatives inside Germany — although the prosecutor said there were no indications so far of a positive response to his overtures. German news media identified the individual as Prince Heinrich XIII, 71, a descendant of the House of Reuss, a royal dynasty from the German state of Thuringia.
I had long ago heard the Reichsbürgerbewegung described as akin to US sovereign citizens. Something about how the Weimar Republic never actually ended. And therefore all manner of whackadoodle is justified. But I then forgot about them. Turns out I may not have had all that correct, but there’s Wikipedia page:
No news yet on whether the group had progressed from mouthing off in chat groups to actual preparations and plans. Most right wing conspiracies uncovered in the last decades turned out to be big talk, first described in dramatic terms by prosecutors.
What‘s serious is that one of the accused is an active-duty NCO on the staff of Germany‘s Kommando Spezialkräfte, the special forces command. Unless it was him who was first found out, and the group via him, that would be a serious failure of military counterintelligence and military leadership. As the special forces cannot be as transparent to public scrutiny as the military in general, it is vital that there be no extremists among them.
Some other accused are reservists (which is not as serious, as such; there are a lot of reservists in the general population so it stands to reason there are a lot of reservists who are nuts) and former police officers (former for good reason, I assume).
Their coup attempt, if it had come to that, would have got nowhere, but they might have succeeded in killing some police officers caught unawares, and/or destroy some infrastructure.
There was a smaller roundup in June of far-right German loons who were plotting a nationwide blackout and to kidnap prominent figures, as part of a hazy plan to overthrow the government.
These nutburgers also are strongly associated with antivax sentiment, what a surprise.
Although still wildly unlikely to succeed, the winter energy crisis resulting from sanctions on Russia makes this the most opportune time for such a coup attempt. I suspect their funding includes contributions from Russian energy oligarchs and bag men from the Kremlin.
News of the “winter energy crisis” are wildly exaggerated.
In Europe, the EU planned to have their gas reserves 85% full by November 1st. They were at 100% by the beginning of October.
Spain receives gas from North Africa, and has linked its network of gas pipelines to the rest of the EU network via France.
Norway is sending gas as well, and the Netherlands has decided to keep its Groningen gas field (the biggest in the continent) open. It was planned to close it completely in 2023; given the geopolitical situation, the Dutch government has decided to keep the currently open wells producing, and reopen the wells that had been already closed.
Add to that that people are generally being prudent with their heating (I keep my house at 18°C, roughly 65°F, for instance) and the situation is by no means problematic at all. As a matter of fact, until now (and I live in the Netherlands) I have not had to switch on the heating at home (although I have to say that my house is very well isolated).
Some governments (for instance the Dutch government) have also established some paybacks to help people pay their energy bills. Energy is expensive here right now, yes, but it is not a disaster, by any stretch of the imagination.
I’ve always wondered how they decide when to pull the trigger on these counter-operations. They’ve probably known about them for a while, and I’m guessing there may have been a mole feeding them details of what they were up to, or they had tapped into their comms. They probably could have shut them down a week ago, maybe even a month ago, but they waited until yesterday.
FWIW, 19000 is the estimate from the German secret services of how many people in Germany are involved with far-right organizations. Not that there are 19000 people involved in this particular plot.
Monarchy restoration groups have a long history in Europe, many of them just scams.
You can assume the secret services monitor almost everything political these days, and there are reasons to believe many of the most high-profile arrests made now are for bureaucratic, internal political reasons. I suspect that what the plotters have been arrested for is (a) less dramatic than the student groups of the 70s would have been planning, and (b) the more extreme parts of the plot were advanced by agents trying to prove their bona-fides with the group. It’s a mad world, my masters.
Thanks for the correction!