Germany announced on Thursday morning (14) the arrest of four members of a far-right network suspected of planning attacks on the country’s authorities for opposing rules imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
They planned, among other things, to kidnap the German health minister, Social Democrat Karl Lauterbach, and destroy the country’s energy facilities. The suspects are linked to the Reichsbuerger (citizens of the Reich, in Portuguese) movement, which denies the existence of the modern German state, the German prosecutor’s office said.
The group aimed “to provoke conditions similar to a civil war and ultimately to overthrow Germany’s democratic system”, according to the authorities, according to which a fifth suspect is on the run.
Searches were carried out at more than 20 properties in different German states over the course of Wednesday, when weapons, ammunition, a Kalashnikov rifle and cash were seized by local police. False Covid immunization certificates and falsified test results for the detection of the disease were also found.
During a press conference, the health minister said that the group represents a minority of German society, but that it is highly dangerous. “This shows that the protests against the fight against Covid have become radicalized, but that it is also about something much bigger than the pandemic”, continued Karl Lauterbach.
Authorities in the country have been investigating the group since October 2021, and those arrested on Wednesday are between 41 and 55 years old. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) estimated, in 2018, that about 16,500 people in the country were with the Reichsbuerger movement, according to information from the Deutsche Welle network.
About 3,500 of them would be based in Bavaria, and another 2,500 in the neighboring state of Baden-Wurttemberg. Most would be male and would, on average, be over 50 years old. Hundreds of followers are linked to populist, anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi ideologies.
This is not the first episode in which German radicals conspire to assassinate officials amid the pandemic. Last December, police thwarted a plan by anti-vaccination groups to assassinate the prime minister of the eastern state of Saxony. The militants formed a group on the Telegram app.
The German government is challenged by the country’s vaccination rates. Just over 75% of the national population completed the first vaccination schedule, and 58% received the booster dose, figures lower than in other Western European countries, such as Portugal, where 92% received the two initial doses, Spain (86%) and Italy (79%). The data is from Oxford University’s Our World in Data platform.
Earlier this month, the Bundestag, the German parliament, rejected a bill supported by Prime Minister Olaf Scholz that would make vaccination against Covid mandatory for people over 60. The age group would have to be vaccinated by October 15, according to the text that was rejected by 378 parliamentarians and supported by 296.
The far-right AfD party celebrated the project’s defeat, while Scholz attempted a successful articulation. He even asked German Chancellor Annalena Baerbock to leave Brussels, where she was for a NATO (western military alliance) meeting on the Ukrainian War, and return to Berlin to participate in the vote.
