German Police Arrest 'Extremists' Plotting to Storm Bundestag

BERLIN (Sputnik) - The German police are conducting one of the country's largest operations against alleged extremist group who planned to storm the Bundestag, prosecutors stated on Wednesday.

The special forces of the German police operate simultaneously in eleven federal states, with reports suggesting that 25 men and women who were either members of a right-wing terrorist organization or supported it have been detained.

"Early this morning ... federal prosecutors arrested 22 alleged members and three alleged supporters of a terrorist organization based on arrest warrants issued by an investigating judge of the Federal Supreme Court," the German federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.

More than 130 homes, offices and other premises are being searched or have already been searched as part of the operation.

American flag flies on top of the U.S. embassy in front of the Reichstag building that houses the German Parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany (File)

© AP Photo / Michael Sohn

Extremists had planned that some members of the security forces would show solidarity with the group, which would lead to a coup. According to German prosecutors, the group intended to set up a provisional military government.

"The group was supposed to form a military provisional government, which, according to the members of the group and according to the narrative of the 'Reichsburger' movement [a small movement that rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state], should negotiate a new state order in Germany with the Allied powers that won World War II," the office added.

Those detained belong to a terrorist organization founded no later than the end of November 2021, which has set the goal of overthrowing the existing state system in Germany and replacing it with its own form of state, the main features of which have already been developed, the statement added.

In addition, the German authorities said a Russian woman, Vitalia B., was among the detained. However, there is no reason to believe that Russian officials supported these conspirators, the office noted.