Following the arrest of 25 suspected members of the far-right Reichsbürger
(“Citizens of the Reich”) movement by German police on December 7, Counter
Extremism Project (CEP) Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler gave
background on how the group organized and context to its motivations, which
allegedly included attacking the Bundestag, overthrowing Germany’s government,
and replacing it with their own. The operation against the cell was, as Dr.
Schindler observed, “one of the largest counterterrorism operations on German
soil since 1945.”





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ICYMI: CEP Senior Director Explains Group Plotting German Coup



(New York, N.Y.) — Following the arrest
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of 25 suspected members of the far-right Reichsbürger (“Citizens of the
Reich”) movement by German police on December 7, Counter Extremism Project
(CEP) Senior DirectorDr. Hans-Jakob Schindler
<[link removed]> gave
background on how the group organized and context to its motivations, which
allegedly included attacking the Bundestag, overthrowing Germany’s government,
and replacing it with their own. The operation against the cell was, as Dr.
Schindler observed, “one of the largest counterterrorism operations on German
soil since 1945.”



Dr. Schindler, a former Coordinator of the United Nations Security Council’s
ISIL (Da’esh), al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Team, told BBC World
News’s “The Context with Christian Fraser
<[link removed]>” that all of the groups “primary
planning was done online and this means messenger services and social media,
which really don’t have the controls in place to really hinder” misuse of their
platforms, and observed that “this particular group believed that there was a
deep state that was about to intervene in Germany to change the political
system and that they wanted to support this … ‘alliance’ of deep state elements
in their efforts to take over the state.”

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Among those arrested in the raid was Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a judge and
former lawmaker with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. AfD
leaders denied any knowledge of the plot and called for “a swift and
comprehensive investigation.” In March 2020, Germany’s domestic intelligence
agency (BfV) labeled a faction within the AfD, Flügel (Wing), as an extremist
organization and a threat to Germany’s democratic order. The AfD responded by
dissolving Flügel in April 2020.



German intelligence reported in June 2022 that Reichsbürger had approximately
21,000 followers across Germany, approximately 10 percent of which it considers
violent, and that it regards the group as a growing security threat whose ranks
include neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, gun enthusiasts, and former soldiers
united by a “deep rejection” of German state institutions. Reichsbürger is also
linked to an alleged April 2022 plot to kidnap German Health Minister Karl
Lauterbach and cause a nationwide power outage by destroying power facilities.



However, as Dr. Schindler told the CBC’s “Canada Tonight
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cell that has been discovered from the broader violent right-wing extremist
spectrum in Germany over the last couple of years. Since 2019, the Federal
Ministry of Interior has consistently judged that violent right-wing extremism
is the largest domestic threat against security and this [operation] really
brought home that point again.”



Watch & Listen To Additional Analysis:



* BBC Scotland’s “The Nine”
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arrests 25 accused of plotting coup
* BBC World Service’s “Newshour”
<[link removed]> | Police in Germany have
arrested twenty five suspected far right extremists
* WTOP’s “Global with JJ Green” <[link removed]>
| Failed German Coup
* WTOP’s “The Hunt”
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| Dozens arrested in suspected plot to overthrow German government


To read CEP’s resource, Germany: Extremism and Terrorism, please click here
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