The Anderson Files: German coup borrows from Jan. 6

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Dec. 22, 2022

Volume XXX, number 19

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German coup plotters borrow from QAnon, Jan. 6

by Dave Anderson

On Dec. 7, some 3,000 German police o cers and special forces raided 150 locations in 11 of Germany’s 16 states as well as in Austria and Italy. Federal prosecutors said they arrested 25 people in connection with a conspiracy to storm the Bundestag (parliament), attack the national electrical power grid, and overthrow the German government. ey had allegedly been planning this coup since November 2021 and had been inspired by the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.

Prosecutors said those detained believe in a “conglomerate of conspiracy theories consisting of narratives from the so-called Reich Citizens as well as QAnon ideology.” ey added that members of the group also believe Germany is ruled by a so-called “deep state.”

Der Spiegel reported that locations searched include the barracks of Germany’s special forces unit KSK in the southwestern town of Calw. e unit has in the past been investigated over alleged far-right involvement by some soldiers.

Prosecutors declined to con rm or deny that the barracks were searched.

According to Der Spiegel, the items seized in the raids included 9mm pistols, swords, knives, stun guns, combat helmets, night-vision equipment, and the duty weapons of two police o cers who were among the suspects. Germany has strict gun laws, but some are now calling for stronger regulations. e left-wing daily Die Tageszeitung reported that investigators found a “hit list” with 18 names and addresses

of prominent German politicians and journalists. ey included the foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, along with six other members of the Bundestag and three public TV presenters.

Der Spiegel said the conspirators are “a rather strange menagerie” that includes “several former members of the German military’s Special Forces Command (KSK), an active elite soldier, a police o cer who had been suspended from duty, a judge who had been a member of the federal parliament with the far-right Alternative for Germany party for four years, a pilot, a lawyer who holds a doctorate degree, a top chef, a tenor singer, an entrepreneur and a doctor — a surprising number of people from the upper echelons of society.” e Reich Citizens movement (or Reichsbürger) is the dominant tendency in the group. ey have integrated the ideas of QAnon into a uniquely German narrative. ey claim the German state is an illegitimate “corporation” created by the Allies after World War II. ey refuse to pay their taxes and refer to themselves as “Selbstverwalter,” or self-governed. is is similar to the U.S. “sovereign citizens.” e leader of the plot was Prince Heinrich XIII, who is a descendant of nobles who ruled parts of uringia, in eastern Germany, for about 800 years. He reportedly reached out to the Russian government for help in the plot. In 2019, Heinrich delivered a 16-minute speech at a digital business summit in Zurich lled with far-right conspiracy theories. He said the dark forces of the Rothschilds and the Freemasons were responsible for both world wars.

In a wire-tapped conversation last summer, Heinrich was heard saying: “We’re going to wipe them out now, the time for fun is over!” Like the U.S. far right, the plotters seem sublimely ridiculous but then seriously sinister upon closer examination. e group had been monitored for months after a tipo . Weeks before the raids, police were warned to prepare for attempts to storm the Reichstag. New York Times reporters Katrin Bennhold and Erika Solomon note this was “the latest of a series of plots discovered in recent years of extremist networks preparing for a day the democratic order collapses, a day they call Day X.” Prosecutors told them this year’s plot was “possibly the most brazen in Germany’s postwar history.”

Richard Grenell disagreed. He

had been Trump’s ambassador to Germany. He told Newsmax he was skeptical about the raids and thought the arrested far rightists were just “dissenting voices.” Grenell was quite unpopular in Germany when he was ambassador. He enraged many Germans when he told Breitbart he supported far right THE REICH CITIZENS parties in Europe such as Alternative for Germany. MOVEMENT ... [HAS] Right after the U.S. insurrection, Grenell said the worst thing that happened on Jan. 6 was Trump getting INTEGRATED THE IDEAS OF kicked o Twitter. “January 6th was a terrible day because it’s the day Big QANON INTO A UNIQUELY Tech and the media kicked President Trump o Twitter and silenced his voice,” he said. “ at was the day that GERMAN NARRATIVE. was an attack on our democracy.” (Actually, Twitter banned Trump’s account on Jan. 8.) Now, Trump and QAnon have been welcomed back to Twitter by Elon Musk. Rough times ahead.

is opinion column does not necessarily re ect the views of Boulder Weekly.