Sweepstakes on the move antivaxby to the far right in Germany† The authorities attacked 5 suspects, all Germans, aged between 41 and 55, four were arrested while these people were planning “violent attacks” in the country and kidnappings of “public figures”, including the popular health minister, social Democrat Karl Lauterbach, AFP learned from a ministerial source.
He said he was “upset” after learning of the possibility of his kidnapping. This “shows not only that the protests against the anti-Covid rules have radicalized, […] but that in the meantime they are attempts to destabilize the state,” he said during a press conference.
This messaging network called “United Patriots” aimed at the destruction “of the German democratic system,” the public prosecutor in Koblenz and the Rhineland-Palatinate police said in a joint press release.
Gold bars and firearms seized
In particular, the suspects, arrested the day before during extensive searches, planned to attack the power grids in order to cause “a prolonged power outage throughout the territory”, which they say would have created the conditions for a “civil war”. † Authorities had been investigating the group, its founders and supporters in various parts of the country since October 2021.
In particular, during Wednesday’s raid, they seized firearms and ammunition, gold bars and silver coins, currencies worth more than 10,000 euros, as well as mobile phones, fake Covid-19 vaccination certificates, or even several documents written about their plans. to overthrow the state.
This far-right movement, especially mobilized since the pandemic
Police Operations Targeting the Radical Edge of the Anti-Health Restriction Movement are multiplied in the land who has brought far-right violence to the forefront of threats to public order, before jihadist peril. This movement has been particularly mobilized in Germany since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and is active in Telegram groups raising threats against elected officials or during demonstrations. The June 2019 murder by a neo-Nazi activist of Walter Lübcke, chosen from the conservative party that championed former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policies to receive migrants, also sent an electric shock to the country.
In early April, German authorities conducted a major search of far-right terrorist circles, as part of a wider investigation, involving police and military intelligence services since 2019. Four suspects from the “Knockout” group 51” were subsequently arrested. Ongoing investigations are also targeting the far-right group “Atomwaffen Division Deutschland”, the German branch of the American neo-Nazi movement.
On Wednesday, the federal prosecutor’s office announced the indictment of a young German sympathizer of this movement, who is suspected of having wanted to start a “race war” in Germany through attacks with explosives and firearms.
