Authorities confiscated a total of 93 weapons in the nationwide raid against a “Reich Citizens” group. In addition, the group wanted to carry out municipal “cleansing”, which was discussed at a meeting of the Bundestag’s internal affairs committee.
A total of 93 weapons were confiscated during the nationwide raid against the “Reichsbürger” group that was raised last week. This is reported by “Welt” based on participant information from a special session of the Bundestag’s Interior Committee. Among them are 9 handguns (short guns), 25 long guns as well as knives, decorative weapons, blank pistols and crossbows. An accused arms dealer was in possession of 200 legal weapons, it said.
In addition, it was discussed at the meeting that the group was planning to carry out “cleansing” in the municipal area, for example with mayors, it is said. However, the group had recently disagreed on the specific course of action.
The group obviously had many more people in the know than previously known. Members of the legal committee of the Bundestag reported on Monday after a special meeting in Berlin that the investigators had found a three-digit number of so-called “non-disclosure agreements” signed by people who had been approached by the group.
According to the deputies, the alleged conspirators had planned to form 286 “homeland security companies” nationwide. According to a representative of the federal prosecutor’s office, they should “arrest and execute” people in the event of an overthrow, said committee member Clara Bünger (left). Concrete preparations have already been made for this in Saxony, Thuringia and Baden-Württemberg.
Even if there is no indication that an attempted coup was imminent, the threat here should be taken seriously because of the high level of violence among those involved, emphasized the legal policy spokesman for the Union faction, Günter Krings (CDU). Katrin Helling-Plahr (FDP) said the case was “terrifying” both in terms of the number of people involved and the group’s financial resources.
During the searches, more than 400,000 euros in cash, gold and silver coins were found, said Bünger. There should also be a locker in which there should be gold bars worth six million euros. For the inner circle of the conspirators, there were satellite phones to communicate securely internally. A communication intercepted by the security authorities was about access to the Bundestag, Bünger reported from the meeting.
“Reich citizens” are people who do not recognize the Federal Republic and its democratic structures. On Wednesday, the federal prosecutor’s office had 25 suspected “Reich citizens” arrested, including former officers and police officers. She accuses 22 of those arrested of being a member of a terrorist organization that wanted to overthrow the political system. Three arrested are considered supporters. The 23 suspects arrested in Germany are in custody.
A decision is to be made next week on the extradition of a 64-year-old German ex-officer who was arrested near the Italian city of Perugia. In the hotel room of the former colonel of a special unit of the Bundeswehr, the police officers found “various material that can be traced back to the anti-state activities of the terrorist organization,” as was reported. According to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, there are 27 other suspects in the investigation in addition to those arrested.
During the searches on Wednesday, weapons were found, among other things, including three live firearms. According to reports, however, magazines for weapons that were not discovered during the raid are also said to have been discovered. According to participants at a special meeting in the evening, the members of the interior committee found out that the signatories were threatened with significant sanctions in the “non-disclosure agreements” that were found.
The Greens chairman Omid Nouripour said that one not only had to point out that in the course of the investigation with Birgit Malsack-Winkemann a former AfD member of the Bundestag was now taken into custody, “but that if you look at which ideologies come together there, then the AfD is actually the parliamentary arm of those who do not want this republic”. It is alarming that the suspects in this case also include members of the Bundeswehr and police officers.
A search in spring found a list of celebrities, including politicians, on one of the suspects. What he intended with the list is still unclear. The Greens domestic politician Misbah Khan said that Union faction leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) and former North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Armin Laschet are on this list, showing that “the danger from the right also applies to the Union”. It is important “to act together as democrats against the threats and attacks from the right”.
