Around 3,000 police officers have carried out raids across Germany to stop an alleged plot by a far-right terrorist group to overthrow the government.
Federal prosecutors said 25 suspected members and supporters of the Reichsburger group – the so-called Reich Citizens movement – were detained during the raids in 11 of the country’s 16 states early on Wednesday.
Twenty-two German citizens were detained on suspicion of “membership in a terrorist organisation”, and three others, including a Russian citizen, are suspected of supporting the group.
Armed police are reported to have stormed up to 100 properties across Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, Lower Saxony, and Thuringia, as well Austria and Italy.
A man referred to as Prince Heinrich XIII, 71, is believed to be central to the group’s activities and was among those arrested.
Der Spiegel reported that the barracks of Germany’s special forces unit the KSK in the southwestern town of Calw was one of the locations raided.
The Reichsburger movement brings together several far-right groups whose aim is to get rid of the current government and replace it with their own.
According to the authorities members of the group have been preparing to “carry out actions based on their ideology” since November 2021.
