Germany arrests eight suspected members of right-wing group plotting revolt

5/11/2024 18:16

        German police have arrested eight suspected members of a right-wing militant group driven by racist ideology and conspiracy theories who had been training in warfare for the downfall of the modern German state, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
        
        The suspects are part of an organisation formed no later than November 2020 called "Saechsische Separatisten", or Saxonian Separatists, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.
        
        "It is a militant group of 15 to 20 individuals whose ideology is characterised by racist, anti-Semitic and partially apocalyptic ideas," the statement added.
        According to investigators, convinced that Germany is nearing collapse, with the fall of government and society prophesied for an undetermined "Day X", the group had been training to use force to establish a new system in the country's east inspired by National Socialism.
        
        The statement said, "If necessary, unwanted groups of people are supposed to be removed from the area by means of ethnic cleansing."
        
        Those arrested include four suspected founding members, identified as Joerg S., Joern S., Karl K. and Norman T.
        
        Seven of the suspects were captured in and around the eastern cities of Leipzig, Dresden and Meissen, while another was taken into custody in the Polish border town of Zgorzelec.