German police raids target group accused of far-right plot to overthrow state

An alleged far-right plot led by a German aristocrat to overthrow the state that sought the backing of the Russian government has been thwarted in Germany, after a series of dawn raids across the country.

Twenty-five people including a 71-year-old prince, a retired military commander, and an acting judge and former MP for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) were planning a violent overthrow of the state, including an armed attack on the parliament, inspired by the storming of the US Capitol, according to prosecutors.

Investigators say they quickly established strong ideological links between the members, who included Reichsbürger, as well as members of the coronavirus denial Querdenker movement and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

German politicians expressed their relief that the plot had been thwarted, though Sara Nanni, of the Greens, said initial indications were that the group might have lacked the means or wherewithal to carry out their plan.

They had even started to nominate ministers for a transitional post-coup government, according to the newspaper Die Zeit, in which one of the suspects, the former AfD MP Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, 58, a judge by profession, who was arrested at her home in the western Berlin district of Wannsee on Wednesday morning, was to be federal minister for justice.

While the suspects believed their aims could be achieved only by military means and with force, prosecutors said, it was unclear whether the group had managed to amass any serious kind of arsenal.