Germany foils far-right plot to install Prince Heinrich XIII in coup

BERLIN: Germany on Wednesday detained 25 members and supporters of a far-right group that the prosecutor’s office said was preparing a violent overthrow of the state to install as national leader a prince who had sought backing from Russia.

Prosecutors said the group was inspired by the deep state conspiracy theories of Germany’s Reichsbuerger and QAnon, whose advocates were among those arrested after the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021. Members of the Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich) do not recognise modern-day Germany as a legitimate state. Some of them are devoted to the German empire under monarchy, while some are adherents of Nazi ideas and others believe Germany is under military occupation.

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The plot envisaged a former member of a German royal family, identified as Heinrich XIII P. R. under Germany’s privacy law, as leader in a future state while another suspect, Ruediger v. P., would be the head of the military arm, with the aim of building a new German army, prosecutors said.

The group had emulated the structure of the government, creating a “council” that had regularly met since November 2021 as an administration-in-waiting with different departments, such as foreign affairs and health, prosecutors said.