Dismantling of plan to overthrow government mirrors rise of extremism in Germany

The operation that arrested at least 25 members of a radical right-wing movement last Wednesday (7), accused of planning an attack on Parliament to carry out a coup in the government, once again brought extremism to the spotlight in a Germany in constant trauma from the Nazi past.

In the following days, investigations brought the total number of suspects in the case to 54 and revealed details of the plan, which could even include the assassination of Prime Minister Olaf Scholz. The developments exposed the more dangerous terrorist character of the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich), based on conspiracy theories along the lines of the American QAnon movement.

Ultra and extreme right parties began to be founded in West Germany in 1946, a year after the end of World War II (1939-1945) and the defeat of the Nazis. At least nine of them were created until 1990, and four ended up being banned by the authorities.

But radicalism gained more visibility after the reunification of Germany, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. If in the previous 45 years East Germany —a communist regime of zero tolerance for any outbursts from the other extreme— had officially counted only 17 murders by members of the extreme right, in 1992 the eastern portion would concentrate most of the approximately 1,500 hate crimes of the reunified country.

A survey by the newspaper Die Zeit points out that in the 20 years following the union, celebrated in 1990, at least 130 people were murdered in violent attacks motivated by racism in the streets of German cities. Since then, many other episodes have happened.

One of the most high-profile recent cases is what became known as the Hanau shootings, when a 43-year-old radical murdered nine people in two hookah bars in the city near Frankfurt, in 2020. Tobias Rathjen, who later killed his mother and became committed suicide, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and his act was considered terrorism. On his website, he accused former US President Donald Trump of stealing his ideas and slogans.

That same year, police counted 24,000 far-right crimes, ranging from displaying Nazi symbols and anti-Semitic remarks to physical attacks and murder. The activities mainly targeted immigrants, refugees and black Germans, and included an increase in violence against Asians related to the pandemic – the coronavirus was initially identified in China.

The Reichsbürger, once derided as crazy and bizarre, came under closer scrutiny by authorities in 2016, when one of its members fatally shot a policeman who had been sent to confiscate his weapons. Two years after this incident, the group has grown by 80%.

Thomas Haldenwang, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence department, said the movement had gained momentum over the past year, posing a “high level of danger”. One of those dangers is that its members are not easily recognizable as bald kids with Nazi tattoos and booties on their feet.

In the operations that foiled the group’s plan, among the 25 arrested on Wednesday there were, in addition to 15 people with some military background, a doctor, a chef and a lyrical singer.

According to Carsten Koschmieder, a researcher at the Free University of Berlin, the Reichsbürger got involved in society in general and gained the support of some part of it. “Even if the members look crazy, many have normal jobs, friends and so on,” he tells Sheet🇧🇷

According to him, although the movement is relatively small to be able to overthrow a government, it represents a danger. In 50 of the 150 homes searched this week, weapons and military equipment were found. “And they were, it seems, willing to use them to injure and kill people.”

Koschmieder has been watching the group for some time, as part of his research into right-wing extremism. “Most of the time, they annoy the state by handing out passports from their imaginary Reich [império] German, they write to local authorities saying that they are now in charge or sue the mayor because their kaiser, not the mayor, is the one who would have authority”, he says. “But some of them have weapons, some are violent, organized and are friends with other extremists from right. They were very active in the Covid and vaccine denial movement. They are anti-Semitic. And they spread their ideas.”

The Reichsbürger was created in the 1980s, and Germany’s intelligence agency estimates that it now has around 21,000 active members — with 1,000 of them classified as radicals. The 25 people arrested were being monitored since the first half of this year.

One of them was identified as Rüdiger Von Pescatore, 69, who lived in Santa Catarina. He has two companies in the state and has acted as a commercial representative for energy companies in Brazil. A former military man, he was reportedly expelled from the German Army for selling weapons from the East German stockpile. Despite spending time in Brazil, he was arrested in Freiburg, in southern Germany, where his daughter lives.

According to the intelligence office, the group had been planning an armed insurrection for about a year to install its own government. Plans included the formation of “homeland security” groups to take over and maintain control of the country, weapons training, IT systems, and a whole parallel cabinet of leaders who would take over in the event of a successful coup.

Members of the military wing were to carry out the “forced elimination of the democratic constitutional state”, as reported by German authorities.

The leader of the group is Heinrich 13th of Reuss, holder of a monarchical title that expired with the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm 2nd and the consequent creation of the modern German State, in 1918. At the age of 71, he was photographed being taken away in handcuffs by the police on Wednesday -fair.

But the Citizens of the Reich reject the idea that such a 105-year-old republican state exists. The real Germany, they say, is the constitutional monarchy that ended at the beginning of the last century. Others argue that the country is under military occupation, do not respect the Constitution and feel that the laws do not apply to them. Last year, one of them lost his government job when he wrote “Kingdom of Bavaria” in his birthplace when applying for a passport, citing a 1913 law.

“Not many guns are in private hands [na Alemanha], but the Citizens of the Reich were actively arming themselves, obtaining licenses for sport shooting,” King’s College London professor of security studies Peter Neumann told NBC. “And there are ex-military and police officers who know how to use guns. . In that sense, they are a dangerous movement that has gained support over the last couple of years.”

Analysts are now focusing on the risk that the plot unveiled this week is not the last – and the possibility that it is linked to other cases of the type.

“Germany’s problems with the far right will not go away. For now, these extremist groups are disparate and disorganized, but when disaffected Germans unite around a single leader, the result can be catastrophe,” he wrote in Britain’s Daily newspaper. Mail the Anglo-German historian Katdja Hoyer, in clear reference to Adolf Hitler. “The political class urgently needs to move – or it may learn that lesson the hard way.”

The problem, however, may be in the political class itself, as Koschmieder reminds us. “There are groups without influence that harm or kill people they don’t like. And there are more ‘accepted’ groups, like the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party that sits in parliament and tries to spread the same ideas, but seeks to distance itself. of violent radicals. Or pretends to, as we saw this Wednesday.”

Among those arrested was Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a former judge and former deputy for the radical acronym. The legend condemned the Reichsburger’s plans.

Hate crime murders in Germany

• 1980 A bomb set off by a far-right radical kills 13 people, including him, and injures 215 at Oktoberfest in Munich
• 1993 Four young men aged between 16 and 23, wearing Nazi headgear, set fire to the home of a Turkish family in Solingen, killing three children and two women.
• 2000 Neo-Nazi Michael Berger kills three police officers in Dortmund and Waltrop
• 2011 Two men and a woman from the National Socialist Underground group are arrested for the murders, with shots to the head, of eight Turkish and one Greek shopkeepers, as well as a policewoman, between 2000 and 2007
• 2019 For defending pro-migration laws, the liberal politician Walter Lübcke is shot to death in his home by a neo-Nazi from the Combat 18 group
• 2019 Broadcasting online, neo-Nazi Stephan Balliet, 27, attempts to break into a synagogue on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, murders a passer-by and attacks a kekab shop, killing a customer, in Halle, Saxony
• 2020 Tobias Rathjen, who spread racist manifestos on his website, murders nine people in two hookah bars in Halle, then kills his mother and commits suicide