In raids across the country, German police have arrested 25 suspected members and supporters of a far-right group who were allegedly seeking to overthrow the state by force, according to the federal prosecutor’s office. About 3,000 officers conducted the raids on Wednesday at 130 sites across 11 German federal states against adherents of the so-called Reich Citizens (Reichsbuerger) movement. Prosecutors said members of the movement were suspected of “having made concrete preparations to violently force their way into the German parliament with a small armed group”.
They added that 22 arrested individuals were German citizens and were detained on suspicion of “membership in a terrorist organisation” while three others allegedly supported the organisation, including a Russian citizen. Some of the group members reject the post-WWII constitution and call for replacing the elected government with their own. They do not exclude violence against the state as a means of achieving their goal. The weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported that one of the raided locations included the barracks of Germany’s special forces unit KSK in the southwestern town of Calw.
