BERLIN: German police have arrested eight suspected members of a right-wing militant group driven by racist ideology and conspiracy theories who were training for war to collapse the modern German state, prosecutors said on Tuesday (Oct 5).

News of the arrests came as a 450-strong police operation was underway to dismantle the group, which prosecutors called “Saechsische Separatisten”, or Saxon separatists.

“Our security authorities have thus thwarted, at an early stage, the coup plans of right-wing terrorists who were longing for an Xa Day to attack our people and our state with armed force,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser in a statement.

This would be the second coup plot uncovered in Germany in recent years.

The so-called “Reichsbuerger” movement was revealed in 2022, led by a would-be prince with ambitions to overthrow the state and install an interim government, in a case that shocked Germany with its network and detailed planning.

The group targeted in Tuesday’s operation was formed no later than November 2020, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“It is a militant group of 15 to 20 individuals whose ideology is characterized by racist, anti-Semitic and partly apocalyptic ideas,” the statement added.

Convinced that Germany was nearing collapse, with the fall of government and society prophesied for an undetermined “X-Day,” the group was training to use force to establish a new system in the country’s east inspired by National Socialism, according to investigators.

“If necessary, unwanted groups of people should be removed from the area through ethnic cleansing,” the statement said.

PARAMILITARY TRAINING

Among those arrested are four alleged founding members, identified as suspected ringleader Joerg S, as well as Joern S, Karl K and Norman T.

Some are to be prosecuted as minors and teenagers.

The eight are accused of participating in a national terrorist organization.

Prosecutors said they completed paramilitary training, focusing on urban warfare, handling firearms, night marching and patrolling.

The group also procured military hardware such as camouflage fatigues, combat helmets, gas masks and bulletproof vests.

Seven of the suspects were captured in and around the eastern cities of Leipzig, Dresden and Meissen, while another was arrested in the Polish border town of Zgorzelec.

The authorities are searching around 20 premises in the execution of warrants ordered by the court, in measures also targeting seven other suspects.