German authorities today handcuffed pPrince Henry XIII of the House of Royce, following a "sweep" operation at the homes of suspected members of the extremist group "Citizens of the Reich" aimed at overthrowing the Berlin government.
After the coup, the group's goal was to form a government led by the 71-year-old German prince. The Berlin government had reliable information that extremists and right-wing extremists, including, in addition to the prince, judges and even former commandos of the German army "Bundeswehr", were planning a coup to overthrow the government in the engine of the Eurozone.
Authorities have already made at least 25 arrests of members of the "Reichsbuerger" ("Citizens of the Reich"). In recent hours, the German authorities have raided the area around the Thuringian Forest Palace as well as the Berlin area.
According to the German newspaper "Bild", the "SEK" elite forces raided several houses, including that of a former member of the xenophobic Afd party in Berlin's Wannsee district. The police raid against the far-right "Citizens of the Reich" - as the group is known - came after reliable sources said they were planning a violent "system change."
Since the early hours of the morning, officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and special units such as the SEK have taken action across Germany against the "Citizens of the Reich".
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Under the code name "Soko" (Shadow), some 3,000 men conducted a search of 137 houses belonging to 52 suspects. According to the German media, authorities have already made at least 25 arrests.
"At 6 a.m. today, according to the German publication, special forces broke into a house in Berlin's residential district of Van der Zee. Three minutes later, they raided the Weidmansale hunting lodge in the Bad Lobenstein district, located in Thuringia," the German newspaper writes."
At the same time, police raided about 30 properties in Baden-Wuerttemberg, including a car repair shop and a carpenter's workshop in the Saxon Mountains. Further searches were carried out in Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Kitzbühel in Austria and Perugia in Italy.
According to the newspaper "BILD", 71-year-old R. and former member of parliament for the xenophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as well as the 58-year-old judge from Berlin, Birgit Malzak Winkenmann, had been in the sights of the German authorities for many months.
Other members of the organization who were arrested are: Maximilian E., Michael F., Paul T., Norbert T., Marcus H., Frank H., Matthias H., Rut L., Andreas M. Thomas M., Harald R., Rene R., Melanie R., Ralph S, Norfram S. Thomas T., Marco H., Riddinger R., and the former councillors of the anti-immigration party "AfD" Christian B., and Peter B.
It is worth noting that among those arrested are the two Russian nationals, who are being treated as suspects by the authorities. Berlin police had sniffed out the "secret coup" by monitoring the movements of a man in Hesse.
According to the German newspaper, the Berlin government had information about the existence of a suspected organization aiming to overthrow democracy from information received from federal security authorities at the end of August 2022.
For the Federal Prosecutor General, "The defendants belong to a terrorist organization that was founded at the end of November 2021 with the aim of overthrowing the existing order in Germany and replacing it with its own form of government."
"This organization is not deterred by violence. It knows that there will be deaths. However, it accepts at least this scenario as a necessary intermediate step to achieve the systemic change it is aiming for at all levels."
The hierarchy of the new state as imagined by the extremists
After the coup, the organization's goal was to form a government led by 71-year-old Prince Henry XIII.
The new government apparatus was to be established as a "principality" according to monarchical authorities and divided into several ministries.
High-ranking members of the organization were reportedly people with influential positions in socially or economically powerful sectors of public life. The coup plans also involve former soldiers and commandos of the German "Bundeswehr." According to information from BILD, several of these individuals allegedly had legally obtained weapons.
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Who are "Reichsbuerger" ("Citizens of the Reich") organization in Germany
Some of them are increasingly positive about the creation of an armed wing and are preparing for "Day X", when they will rise up against the government.
For the German agency "BfV" - charged with monitoring extremist organisations that threaten constitutional order, the movement's membership stood at 15,600 in January - an increase of more than 50% in a year.
Most of the extremist "Citizens of the Reich" are based in Bavaria, where they are estimated at 3,500. They are followed by Baden-Wuerttemberg with 2,500, North Rhine-Westphalia with 2,200, Lower Saxony with 1,400 and Saxony with 1,300. The extremist movement is also reportedly working on plans to create an armed wing that would engage in violent acts, according to the German magazine "Focus."
"They are preparing for Day X," an unnamed security official told the magazine. The "Reichsbuerger," according to Die Welt, is a loose coalition of nationalist organizations across the country that believe modern Germany and its political institutions are controlled by a "puppet" government installed by the victors of World War II, making it illegitimate.
Many members of the "Citizens of the Reich" are reportedly on the far right and argue that the Third Reich (which ended in 1945 with Germany's capitulation) should return to its pre-1937 borders, which included large swathes of territory in Poland, the Czech Republic and other neighbouring countries.
In the past they were seen as quaint conspiracy theorists, but a series of attacks on the police has forced the German government to become more concerned with them. For some, they are the future face of the German far-right.
Some identify with the Reich and do not recognize today's Germany, and others make racist rhetoric in a cultural way. They are also called "Reich Germans" or "Germanites" and, as the title suggests, they feel they are citizens of the Third Reich and express this at every opportunity by proclaiming that they do not recognize the Federal Republic of Germany, its constitution, its state institutions, its services.
Moreover, they refuse to fulfil the obligations that a citizen has towards the state in which he resides.
This attitude is inspired by the far-right ideology that is common in the ranks of the far-right movement. Among its members - whose numbers are growing - there are at least 1,000 who have "a closed far-right worldview", according to Timo Reinfranc, an expert on right-wing radical ideology at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.
A spokesman for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution explains, however, that the group is heterogeneous and fragmented and that it offers ideological shelter to "those" who live in their own world, right down to far-right Prussian nostalgics.
Some of them do not pay taxes and fines, drive around with Prussian identity cards or Prussian car registration numbers and do their best to annoy authorities and officials.
The relevant ministries in several federal states have issued circulars with rules for "difficult customers."
Prince Henry XIII is alleged not only to be a leading member of the "Citizens of the Reich" but also to have wanted to become head of state after the overthrow of the Berlin government, according to the newspaper Bild.
The 71-year-old prince, Die Welt comments, owns, among other things, a neo-Gothic property in Saaldorf an der Saale, which served as a "hangout" for the extremist organization "Citizens of the Reich" with the aim of overthrowing the Berlin government.
Prince Henry XIII of the House of Royce is the owner of a hunting lodge, Weidmansale. According to police authorities, the "Citizens of the Reich" used the imposing castle for their meetings and discussed their plans for the upcoming coup there.
The 71-year-old German prince has resided in recent years in Frankfurt's Main, specifically in the affluent district of Westend. German police raided his luxury home this morning and handcuffed him, the German publication comments.
In 2019, in a speech at a world forum held in Zurich, Henry XIII expressed his enthusiasm by saying that the Federal Republic of Germany is not a sovereign state.
"In the Principality of the House of Royce," he said, citizens have "a happy life" because the administrative structures are "manageable and clear." "If something goes wrong, you go to the prince." "The separation of powers is an 'illusion' for Prince Henry XIII. "Germany is a 'vassal state'," he had claimed, among other things, on the "Worldwebforum" forum, also spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
As commented by the newspaper "Die Welt", the German prince had then pointed out that behind revolts such as the French Revolution there were "representatives of the Rothschild dynasty."
"The US financed the Hitler regime."
"The US financed the Hitler regime. The wars were started "to promote the expansion of the Jewish population," he had added. In July 2020, Prince Henry XIII introduced himself as a representative of the House of Royce.
Speaking of his descendants, he said some consider him "an old man who has lost it" and is "trapped in conspiracy theories". 14 years ago, he made the decision to distance himself from his family members after they could not understand his theories. The 58-year-old judge from Berlin Brigit Malzak Winckenmann
had a prominent role in the "Citizens of the Reich"
In addition to Prince Henry XIII, German judge Brigit Malzak Winckenmann pulled the strings of the extremist organization "Citizens of the Reich". She would have been his right-hand man if the coup had succeeded. The former member of parliament for the xenophobic AfD party was seen this morning when the police burst into her home and handcuffed her. The elite "SEK" forces arrived at around 6am at her home in the Wannsee district of Berlin. The authorities arrested her and, as the German press explains, accompanied by police officers, the 58-year-old judge was taken to the Federal Criminal Police Office.
She studied law and was a member of the anti-immigration party AfD from 2017 to 2021. He belonged to the extremist "wing" of the party. After leaving the federal parliament "Bundestag", she returned to her seat in the Berlin district court.
In June 2022, the left-wing parliamentarian in charge of justice issues, Lena Kreck (left), applied for the 58-year-old's temporary retirement due to strong doubts about her loyalty to the German constitution. However, the court rejected her application. According to the Advocate General, Birgit Malzak-Winkelmann was in charge of the justice sector and in particular of the 'administrative structures' planned by the 'Citizens of the Reich' in the period after the overthrow of the government.
At the same time, as the newspaper Die Welt points out, in addition to the prince and the judge, there was also the "military arm" of the extremist organisation, which included former soldiers of the Bundeswehr.
According to security circles, there were also members of the commandos of the German army's special forces (KSK). The prince was to become head of state with Thomas T as his personal adviser. According to the prosecutor's office, members of the extremist organization had been preparing feverishly for the coup in recent months with marksmanship training and recruitment of new members.
Similar to the cabinet of a normal government, the new form of government will have a "Council"[/B] as its cornerstone, with various departments such as Justice, Foreign Affairs and Health. Judges Birgit Malzak Vinkelman, Paul J. , Ruth L. Renee R. and Melanie R. would head the departments. Winkelman was to become "Council Minister" taking on a prominent role after the coup.
At the same time, the head of the "military arm" of the organization is Ridinger O., a former lieutenant colonel, who until April 1996 was commander of the Parachute Corps in Calv, Baden-Württemberg. Among its tasks were the recruitment of new members, the supply of weapons and other equipment, the creation of a bug-proof communication and IT structure, target practice and the drawing up of plans for the future housing and supply of "internal security companies".
Source: protothema.gr
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