A prince, former army officers, a former far-right MP: the trial of the alleged leaders of an unusual conspiracy network, which wanted to overthrow the German government by force, opened on Tuesday.
This trial, unprecedented in recent German history, before the Frankfurt court, is the second concerning this case which involves a total of 26 suspects, whose revelation at the end of 2022 stunned the country.
Among the nine people in the dock on Tuesday are the alleged masterminds of the group fueled by conspiratorial and far-right ideologies. They planned to invade the Chamber of Deputies in Berlin – the Bundestag – to arrest elected officials and bring down the government.
Detained since the dragnet in December 2022, the judge and former MP for the far-right AfD party, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, appeared in court wearing a black down jacket. Behind her, Henry XIII, known as Prince Reuss, accused of being the main instigator of the coup attempt, wore a dark blazer and displayed a relaxed air.
They are being tried for “participation in a terrorist group” which had “set itself the objective of eliminating state order by force” and for “preparing an act of high treason”.
This is the main procedure against this network whose dismantling had highlighted the sources of the conspiratorial and anti-system threat in Germany.
A first trial began at the end of April under high security against nine other members of the gang in Stuttgart (southwest). The rest will be tried in Munich from June 18.
Castle conspiracy
The Frankfurt court will delve for several weeks into “the bizarre and delusional world” of a group nourished “on Internet myths, hatred and belief in cosmic forces”, writes Spiegel magazine.
These are not “harmless madmen, but rather dangerous terrorist suspects”, who were preparing “a violent coup d’état”, driven “by hatred of our democracy”, warned the Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser in a statement Tuesday.
The small group planned to install at the head of the country the 72-year-old aristocrat and businessman, Henry XIII, known as Prince Reuss, descendant of a line from the State of Thuringia.
A former lieutenant colonel in the German army, Rüdiger von Pescatore, 70, commander of a paratrooper battalion in the 1990s, is also among the accused, alongside a former army colonel, d ‘a former KSK special forces soldier and an ex-police officer.
All are notably influenced by the ideology of the “Reichsbürger” (citizens of the Reich, editor’s note), a heterogeneous movement which denies the Federal Republic of Germany any legitimacy.
According to the federal prosecutor’s office, the defendants claim that Germany is dominated by a “conspiratory sect of pedophile elites.”
An ideology also reminiscent of the QAnon conspiracy movement from the United States.
Interference from Moscow?
According to the federal prosecutor’s office, the Russian Vitalia B., companion of Mr. Reuss and prosecuted for her part by the courts for having supported the group, would have “put him in contact (…) with the Russian consulate general in Leipzig and accompanied him there in June 2022.”
He sought to secure the support of the Russian authorities, even if at the time of the dismantling of the cell, the Kremlin had – as usual – denied any interference.
The network had given itself the means to achieve its ambitions, with “around 500,000 euros” at its disposal, as well as an “arsenal of around 380 firearms, nearly 350 bladed weapons as well as 500 other weapons and at least less 148,000 ammunition”, according to investigators.
“It was clear to the members (of the small group, editor’s note) that the takeover in preparation would involve the death of people,” they said.
In recent years, German authorities have ranked far-right violence as the number one threat to public order, ahead of jihadist risk.
Several networks have been dismantled over the past two years, one of which planned the kidnapping of the Minister of Health, at the origin of the anti-Covid restriction measures.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
