German coup attempt: Nobleman relied on soldiers and Russia

The so-called Reich Citizens (Reichsbürger) network has been planning an attack on the Berlin parliament in Germany since November 2021. It’s unclear exactly how far the plans go. Murders and other acts of violence were also expected.

Information received from the German prosecutor’s office and media reports show that an armed terrorist organization wants to invade the Bundestag and attack energy facilities at the same time. The putschists calculated that this would cause unrest in Germany.

It was their imagination that some of the security forces would be in “solidarity” with the coup attempt and allow this small group to overthrow the government by force. This was followed by the establishment of a provisional military government followed by World War II. Negotiations for a new order with the victors of World War II would follow.

Details of the plan, its preparation or feasibility are not yet known, but police intervened in about 135 locations on Wednesday. This is the largest counter-terrorism operation in German history to date. Three thousand police officers attended.

Originally from Thuringia, Heinrich Reuss, also known as Henry XIII of Reuss’ old German princely family, was supposed to be an important figure in the coup plotters.

Reuss is among 25 arrested and runs the group’s “political cell”. A German nobleman lives and trades real estate in Frankfurt am Main. Thuringia owns the Waidmannsheil hunting lodge in Bad Lobenstein.

German media wrote about Reuss and Bad Lobenstein in connection with the attack on a journalist this summer. The town’s independent mayor, Thomas Weigel, was attacked for recording him remotely at the town’s festivities during a meeting with Reuss and an AfD politician.

The event is videotaped (see below). Reuss is wearing a light suit with glasses. The media wrote about him as a “controversial guest” close to the so-called Reich citizens, of whom 71-year-old Reuss is a follower.

Citizens of the Reich (RO) believe that the current Federal Republic of Germany is neither legitimate nor sovereign, and refers to the German Empire founded in 1871. According to the RO, the current republic is controlled by “foreign powers”, that is, by Earth’s victors. War II

According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Reich citizens number about 21,000 people, including about 2,100 ready to use violence. Also, about 1,150 people from MA rank the office on the far right.

October 19, 2016, the shooting and killing of a member of the SEK police unit by a pro-MA person in Georgensgmünd, Bavaria, is considered a turning point in the perception of the “Reichs”. Male cops were supposed to confiscate firearms.

Parts of the MA claim that the German Empire continues to exist and its constitution still stands. Based on this Reich constitution, Kaiser II, who abdicated in 1918. They demand the appointment of Wilhelm’s great-great-grandson as German emperor.

The aforementioned Heinrich Reuss should assume the role of regent, that is, head of state, in the monarchy after the coup. Reuss was also chairman of the “Council,” a type of government formed by the group.

Birgit Malsacková-Winkemannová, a former deputy of the populist and far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, also took part in the party.

Malsacková-Winkemannová entered parliament in 2017 from the position of judge, which she returned to after the failure of last year’s parliamentary elections. And this despite the fact that he was among the suspects of the far right and failed to prompt early retirement of the state government in Berlin.

In the “council” of the putschists, Malsacková-Winkemannová was in charge of the ministry of justice. On Wednesday, police searched the judge’s home in Berlin, where he entered with a ram.

Reuss had drawn attention with his anti-Semitic statements in the past, and claimed in his speeches that Germany was not a sovereign state and that Jewish elites were provoking wars for their own interests.

Noble family from Henry XIII this year. and turned away from his statements. A spokesperson for the noble family said in the summer that Reuss left the family voluntarily fourteen years ago and that his relatives had not had any personal contact with him for a long time.

The family described Heinrich Reuss as “a distant relative” and a “partly insane old man” consumed by conspiracy theories.

Reuss should have also tried to contact the Russian embassy in Germany about his coup plans. Russian citizen Vitalija B., who was among those arrested, also helped him in this regard.

“But according to the investigation so far, there is no indication that the people contacted will respond positively to his request,” the federal prosecutor said. said.

On Wednesday, the Russian embassy in Berlin also denied direct contact with Reich citizens.

For Reuss, Russia would be the main power with which he wanted to negotiate post-coup arrangements. For a long time he proudly speaks of his royal family’s kinship with the Romanovs, the last tsarist family.

The citizens of the Reich mainly wanted to recruit members of the Bundeswehr and the police to achieve their goals, which they had achieved to some extent. They discussed the plans at at least four meetings in Baden-Württemberg.

The second leader of the group, Rüdiger von P., the former commander of a special paratrooper unit, was supposed to take care of military affairs in the group. He had to leave the army when it was discovered that he had stolen weapons from warehouses. His group tried to take up arms and practice shooting.

This October, members of the organization’s “military branch” inspected the Budeswehr barracks in Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria “to check their suitability to house their own soldiers after the government was overthrown”.

According to ZDF Heute, the accused members of the group include, among others, a retired Bundeswehr colonel. Also, a former police officer and then operator of one of the biggest channels about the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory about the conspiracy of pedophile Satanists.

“The investigation focuses, among others, on an active soldier and several Bundeswehr reserves,” a spokesman for military counterintelligence (MAD) said in Cologne on Wednesday. Although an active duty soldier is a member of the Special Forces Command, he did not assume a command role here.

The group is also linked to the Querdenker movement, aka “diverse-minded”, which is spearheading protests against epidemic restrictions in Germany. During such demonstrations, arrests of politicians were demanded, among other things, and calls for murder spread on social networks.

Last spring, so-called enemy lists and “death lists” also went into circulation. In addition to the extremists in the ranks of epidemic deniers, these have also been repeatedly created and spread by neo-Nazis in recent years. These are the names and personal data of politicians, activists, and others that extremists label as their enemies.