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CRIME

Germany charges sixth suspect in health minister kidnap plot

German prosecutors said Wednesday they had charged a sixth suspect in a far-right plot to kidnap the health minister and overthrow the government in protest against Covid-19 restrictions.

Published: 17 April 2024 11:49 CEST
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wears a mask during a press conference in 2022.
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wears a mask during a press conference in 2022. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld

The 61-year-old man was charged with “the preparation of a treasonous enterprise and membership in a terrorist organisation”, Frankfurt prosecutors said in a statement.

The group intended to strike several parts of the energy grid to provoke a “nationwide power outage lasting several weeks” that would provide cover for a coup attempt, investigators said.

The alleged plotters planned to abduct Health Minister Karl Lauterbach “at gunpoint”, potentially killing his bodyguards in the process.

During the coronavirus pandemic, some of the fiercest opponents of the government’s anti-virus measures were far-right activists who reject Germany’s democratic institutions.

Lauterbach had become a hate figure for the group because of the pandemic restrictions including the requirement to wear facemasks in public places that he had ordered.

“The kidnapping of a high-ranking federal government official was intended to demonstrate the group’s determination and capabilities,” prosecutors said.

The latest suspect was said to have “participated in meetings of the group and worked on the concretisation of the plans”.

The man allegedly declared himself ready to participate in the kidnapping of Lauterbach, prosecutors said.

He also offered his garage in the region south of Frankfurt to a group ringleaders as a weapons store, investigators said.

The senior plotter was arrested in April 2022 and the arms – two AK-47 assault rifles and four Glock pistols – were never deposited.

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The new suspect also offered to “sail” to Russia after the planned coup “as a member of a delegation to negotiate an ‘alliance’ with Russian state authorities and to procure military equipment”, prosecutors said.

Five other members of the group went on trial in Koblenz in May 2023.

The group intended to replace the government with an authoritarian system “modelled on the constitution of the German Empire of 1871”, according to investigators.

The belief that the German government is illegitimate is current among members of the far-right Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) movement, which has attracted a growing number of followers.

The organisers of another alleged far-right plot to topple the government were arrested in raids at the end of 2022.

The trial of the suspected ringleader, the aristocrat and businessman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss, will open in Frankfurt in May.

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POLITICS

Scholz says attacks on deputies ‘threaten’ democracy

Leading politicians on Saturday condemned an attack on a European deputy with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's party, after investigators said a political motive was suspected.

Published: 5 May 2024 08:34 CEST
Scholz says attacks on deputies 'threaten' democracy

Scholz denounced the attack as a “threat” to democracy and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also sounded the alarm.

Police said four unknown attackers beat up Matthias Ecke, an MEP for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden on Friday night.

Ecke, 41, was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said. Police confirmed he needed hospital treatment.

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of act,” Scholz told a congress of European socialist parties in Berlin, saying such attacks result from “discourse, the atmosphere created from pitting people against each other”.

“We must never accept such acts of violence… we must oppose it together.”

Borrell, posting on X, formerly Twitter, also condemned the attack.

“We’re witnessing unacceptable episodes of harassment against political representatives and growing far-right extremism that reminds us of dark times of the past,” he wrote.

“It cannot be tolerated nor underestimated. We must all defend democracy.”

The investigation is being led by the state protection services, highlighting the political link suspected by police.

“If an attack with a political motive… is confirmed just a few weeks from the European elections, this serious act of violence would also be a serious act against democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

This would be “a new dimension of anti-democratic violence”, she added.

Series of attacks

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s EU election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police added that a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had earlier been “punched” and “kicked” in the same Dresden street. The same attackers were suspected.

Faeser said “extremists and populists are stirring up a climate of increasing violence”.

The SPD highlighted the role of the far-right “AfD party and other right-wing extremists” in increased tensions.

“Their supporters are now completely uninhibited and clearly view us democrats as game,” said Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, regional SPD leaders.

Armin Schuster, interior minister in Saxony, where an important regional vote is due to be held in September, said 112 acts of political violence linked to the elections have been recorded there since the beginning of the year.

Of that number, 30 were directed against people holding political office of one kind or another.

“What is really worrying is the intensity with which these attacks are currently increasing,” he said on Saturday.

On Thursday two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and one was hit in the face, police said.

Last Saturday, dozens of demonstrators surrounded parliament deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also a Greens lawmaker, in her car in eastern Germany. Police reinforcements had to clear a route for her to get away.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

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