By Miranda Murray, Rachel More and Max Schwarz
BERLIN/BAD LOBENSTEIN, Germany (Reuters) – German authorities on Thursday ordered the detention of 23 people for questioning as they investigate a far-right group that prosecutors say wanted to overthrow the state and install a former member of a German royal family as chief national.
Investigators said the group, many of whom were members of the Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich) movement, planned to install the aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuss as head of a new state and found evidence that some members planned to storm the German parliament and seize legislators.
Heinrich, 71, a descendant of the royal house of Reuss in eastern Thuringia, worked as a property developer. He was arrested in the financial capital Frankfurt on Wednesday in an attack on the group that shocked many in one of Europe’s most stable democracies and its biggest economy.
The House of Reuss, now headed by Heinrich XIV who lives in Austria, has disavowed the alleged plot.
“Of course it has a catastrophic impact on the family,” Heinrich XIV told MDR TV channel, speaking of his distant relative with whom he said he had had no contact for 10 years.
“For 850 years we were, I think, a tolerant and cosmopolitan royal house in eastern Thuringia and now we are considered terrorists and reactionaries all over the world, even in America. It is quite terrible”, a- he added.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the previous day’s raids, in which 25 people were arrested across Germany as well as in Austria and Italy, were the most important ‘executive measures’ never seen in Germany against the Reichsbuerger.
“The most important consequence is that everyone knows that we have a resilient state and democracy whose security organs can penetrate and counter such crimes and plans,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a press conference. Thursday evening.
Alongside the 23 people placed in police custody, two people arrested outside Germany must be extradited. Many suspects are over 50 and include right-wingers, COVID deniers and people who reject the modern German state.
More arrests are likely in the coming days. Holger Muench, head of the federal police office, told the ARD television channel on Thursday that there were now 54 suspects in the case.
Wednesday’s raids were carried out in 11 German federal states, stunning many in the country.
“It’s not really understandable: you hear about such plans in other countries but it happens outside my front door?” said Melanie Merle, who lives near the apartment in Frankfurt where Heinrich was arrested.
CONSPLOT THEORIES
Prosecutors said the group was inspired by deep state conspiracy theories from the Reichsbuerger and QAnon in Germany, whose lawyers were among those arrested after the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021.
Members of the Reichsbuerger do not recognize modern Germany and its borders as a legitimate state. Some are devoted to the former German “Reich” (empire) under a monarchy, with some also sharing Nazi ideas and believing that Germany is under military occupation.
Police searched the Waidmannsheil hunting lodge in the town of Bad Lobenstein, Thuringia, which is believed to belong to Heinrich, on Thursday.
The town’s deputy mayor said residents had received a letter saying their German passports were invalid.
“All the citizens of Bad Lobenstein received a letter last summer in which we were told that we were not German because our passports were not German,” Andree Burkhardt told Reuters.
“We then had the opportunity to request our documents of German origin from the Reuss administration. This of course caused a huge outcry among the population,” he added.
A former lawmaker for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was among those arrested, prosecutors said.
Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier singled out the AfD, which sits in the state parliament, as an interface for right-wing extremists, saying it was spreading what he called fantasies about the overthrow of the state.
“People are scared, and the AfD is taking advantage of this and offering simple solutions,” said Maier, who is from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party.
The AfD said in a statement on Wednesday that it condemned the far-right group’s efforts and expressed confidence in the authorities’ ability to clarify the situation.
(Reporting by Miranda Murray, Rachel More, Max Schwarz, Timm Reichert, Tom Simms, Christoph Steitz and Thomas Escritt; Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Nick Macfie and Edmund Blair)
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