Front Burner - Germany’s alleged Day X coup plot explained

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

In what’s being called the largest anti-extremism operation in modern German history, thousands of police officers conducted raids across the country on Wednesday. An active soldier, a judge and even an aristocrat were among 25 people arrested. Police say 27 more are suspected of allegedly plotting to overthrow the state in an armed coup. The group is thought to have been inspired by right-wing extremist conspiracy theories. But this is just the latest example of politically-motivated crime in the country. Today on Front Burner we’re talking to the political editor of Der Spiegel, Ann-Katrin Müller, about the details of this alleged plot, who’s behind it, and the state of right-wing extremism in Germany.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. In the following 10 minutes, I would like to talk about the causes of abolishing the monarchy and the suffering that came with it. This is Heinrich XIII, Prince of Reuss. He's one of the last descendants of a dynasty that ruled over parts of eastern Germany until 1918.

And according to him, that's when things went wrong. Everything was fine in the principality ruled by the Reuss family and people were leading happy lives. Because the administrative structures were straightforward and transparent. If something was not going well, you approached the prince. Who are you supposed to turn today? To your parliamentarian, local, federal, or EU level? Good luck. He gave this speech at a digital business summit in Zurich in 2019. And it's kind of hard to follow.

He talks about the Rothschilds, the Freemasons, and nefarious foreign powers. But basically, he thinks Germany has been a vassal state since World War II. Members of Heinrich's family have reportedly distanced themselves from him, believing him to be a confused old man who went down the rabbit hole. On Wednesday, Prince Heinrich was arrested in Frankfurt. German police identified him as one of the suspected ringleaders of a plot to overthrow the government in an armed coup. It is the biggest anti-terrorism raid in Germany for many years.

On Wednesday morning, some 3,000 police raided more than 100 properties in several German states and arrested 25 people, all of them suspected members or supporters of the so-called Reichsbürger movement. Their goal? They wanted to overthrow democracy. Today, I'm speaking to Anne Katrin Muller. She's a political editor of Der Spiegel, and she joins me from Berlin. She's here to take us through the details of this alleged plot, who's behind it, and the state of right-wing extremism in Germany. Anne-Katrin, thank you so much for being with me today. Well, thanks for inviting me.

I want to get more into some of the individual players behind this plot in a bit. But first, can you just tell me what we know about what these people were trying to do exactly? Like, what was the plot? Well, they were dreaming of a kind of a day X scenario and that they would go actually into the Bundestag and then they would take some politicians, some members of our ruling government into their custody and that they would change the form of our democracy into a so-called Fürstentum, which is some kind of like monarchy.

Officials here say the group was planning a violent attack right at the heart of government here, as well as wanting to build a new army. Some of the members were inspired by deep state conspiracy theories from QAnon and Germany's Reichsberger movement. And you mentioned like a day X scenario. I know this isn't a new concept among the right in Germany. Can you just explain that to me? What is that? Well, they're hoping for like this one special day where like everything comes together for them and they can like overrule the system that is, you know, working right now.

And so this is when they will start like an action and everybody else will follow them. Day X is this notion that has been popular with the far right for a long time. It's supposed to represent this day when the democratic order collapses and they take over. And in their telling, save the nation. The trigger for Day X can be anything. A power cut. A natural catastrophe. A terrorist attack. A natural catastrophe. A terrorist attack.

A pandemic. So in their opinion, if they are just powerful enough or interesting enough in that sense, that the police would change their sides and would come together with them and join kind of the revolution and destroy the Bundesrepublik, which is our federal democracy, with them. Okay. From what's been reported so far, how capable was this group? Like, how well equipped were they to pull this off? Well, we're not that sure yet, actually, because it depends on how much is found from the police when they're now

looking at all the places that they're looking at i mean they they searched in 130 kind of houses and objects so that is a lot and they're still going through the stuff um but one has to say that compared to other ploys to destroy democracy they had one woman that was already a member of Bundestag in the last judicial period. They had someone who was in the police. They had someone who was a soldier, actually a couple of soldiers and pretty good soldiers before. So they have members of society that that are kind of they were not

outsiders in any sense they were from the middle of you know normal society in that sense um and so they have connections of some sorts and they they generally could know what they are doing the question is did they like boast when they were talking on the phone and tell you more than they had actually achieved? Or are they as scary as they sound from what the police gathered beforehand? Talk to me a little bit about what these people believed in, right? Like why they thought this Day X and this coup was necessary. I know one of the ideologies thought to have inspired this plot is the Reichsbürger or citizens of the Reich. And can you tell me a bit about what this movement is?

Yes, that movement kind of doesn't believe in the Bundesrepublik, which is like the name of the political state in Germany. So they believe that the German state is not sovereign. They believe that the Americans actually are influencing everything that Germany does, the German government does, or that some kind of mysterious elite is kind of pulling the strings. they would probably hand them some kind of self-made uh id card saying they are members of the state of something that they imagined and um so that is a little bit connected to q anon or q anon i think you say in english yeah q anon maybe yeah yeah um because they kind of have the same also anti-Semitic foundation, basically, because they also don't believe in the state is doing things for anyone's good.

And that there's like this mysterious elite I was talking about, which is an anti-Semitic concept. Actually, in this group, there's some that we will call the Reichsbürger. And then there's some that we will call the Reichsbürger, and then there's some that believe in QAnon. And then there's some that are properly right wing extremists in the old sense. And then there's some that are what we call Querdenker, which is kind of this new thing that happened during the pandemic that people would from then on believe into conspiracy theories. Okay, like anti-vaxxers, that kind of stuff, right?

Yes. So, so, fair for me to say, like, there's no coalescing ideology in this group. Well, the thing that unites them, kind of, is that they hate the government now and the way that Germany works in their democratic ways, and that they hate the government now and the way that germany works in their democratic ways and that they came together to form a new kind of government which implements different things for example they believe that vaccinations gets you chipped you've probably heard of that yeah and so they would have in the new government some people called the seers so they would see whether you are chipped and then the chips would get gotten out of your body.

So this is, you know, they say, OK, this guy is going to do our finances and this guy is going to do the prince person is going to be our chief. But these two, I think it was ladies, will look after everyone and see whether they have been shipped because they got the vaccination or not. A simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household

income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Earlier, you mentioned one of the people arrested in this plot was a former member of parliament. I understand she was a member of the far-right party, Alternative for Deutschland, or AFD. And can you tell me a little more about her and her involvement in this plot? Yeah, she's called Birgit Maizak-Winkelmann in German, and she was in the Bundestag for years. She was elected 2017, and she would have been in the Bundestag right now if the far-right party

that you mentioned, the AFD, the Alternative for Germany, it would be translated, had been more successful at the last elections because she would have been number five in her district and only three people got in from their party in that part. So she could have been a member of Bundestag right now when she was taken into custody. And she actually belongs to the not as radical part of the party as they would say it. But imagine if someone who's, you know, part of that plot or might be part of the party as they would say it but imagine if someone who's you know part of that plot or might be part of that plot is part of the not so radical party how that party is in germany it's actually the party that i report most on so i knew about her beforehand she for example

believes that migrants carry bacteria that doesn't work with antibiotics anymore. She also loves Donald Trump. So she is quite out there. And she was supposed to help with finding the way around the Bundestag when they went in on day X and wanted to find politicians. So that was kind of a role. And she was supposed to become the justice minister afterwards and when they were successful because she actually when she got out of the Bundestag again she is a judge in Germany she's a judge in Berlin they actually tried to get her out of it because she is a far-right politician or she was a far-right politician she actually still has a job in the AFD but they couldn't before I think after yesterday they might find a way to keep her

out of being a judge yeah and just for people here in Canada the AFD if you could just briefly tell me a little bit more about that party because it's a very controversial party in Germany, right? Yes. I mean, it started as this kind of Euro-critical party, and it was always more right than, for example, our Conservative Party. Founded in 2013 as a Euro-sceptic party to the right of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, the AfD won regional and European parliamentary seats before lurching even further to the right. With an election slogan of burghers would prefer bikinis, the party is demanding the immediate closure of borders to stop what it sees as uncontrolled mass immigration. Since the start of the refugee crisis in 2015, the party has become increasingly

Islamophobic. While most parties welcomed the intake of refugees, the AFD opposed it, attracting voters in the process. I think you could maybe compare it to kind of like the Tea Party from the Republicans, but it's all out there and it's an old party. And they have people who are very important in their party that are actually right-wing extremists. And they kind of don't try to get them out anymore because that is kind of the ideology that they follow. So the AFD is a problem, but it is still in the Bundestag. The second specific character I was hoping we could spend a little bit of time on

is Henrik XIII, who I mentioned in the intro. And from what you've learned, what was his role in this plot? Well, he seems to be the leader, if you could call him that. I mean, he has this kind of castle that he is like a second place to live and apparently some of the other people that are being investigated right now moved there already so they had like this was kind of like the main room where they got together and planned all the stuff and he is actually quite rich so he has resources he deals with I don't know the word right now i'm sorry estate like houses and stuff and um he apparently is a follower of conspiracy theories has been for a long time

and he's pretty old for someone who wants to try the revolution in my opinion but apparently that gave him some kind of gravita in the group because they followed him or they just liked that he had a lot of money. We're not that sure yet why he was the leader. But he's also very prominent in German conspiracy telegram. So in Germany, telegram isn't used as a normal messenger from that many people, but it's used by almost all the conspiracy ideologists that we have. And his channel is pretty big compared to other German channels. So that is where you could know him from, where you could find the audio that you did probably and all this stuff. This story seems really wild, but it's actually just the latest, right, in a series of plots unearthed in recent years involving extremists

basically planning for this event called Day X that you talked about earlier. And I just wonder if you could flesh that out a bit more for me. What have you seen in Germany that has led up to this? Well, it's definitely wild, but it's also very dangerous because i mean if you look at the um capital thing in the u.s on january 6th sorry that's very hard for germans to do then uh i mean you would see some characters where you would look at them and say oh they look crazy and is that even like properly dangerous but it is because they have this idea that they that they are against the world right they they are fighting against a very powerful enemy and so they think that

violence is an option and that's what makes them so dangerous which is why they like this group that we were talking about before was trying to get any weapons everything. And it is one of some plots that we had. We actually had another plot of people trying to catch our health minister and bring him somewhere else. Investigations, the authorities said, are ongoing against a total of 12 people who all belong to a chat group on the social platform Telegram that calls itself Vereinte Patrioten, so United Patriots in English. And there are some 70 people in this group.

And according to the authorities, the two main suspects allegedly agreed with others to attack the German health minister Karl Lauterbach, who we saw. But they also planned to kidnap other well-known public figures. I mean, in this scene, there is a lot of wishful thinking and actual plans about bringing our members of government or the former members of government who implemented measures against COVID to bring them to justice and actually to self-justice, because they're not going for democratic ways. They are going for violence and, well, revenge, I would say. Am I remembering correctly that back in August 2020, the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, it was also targeted, right?

It wasn't a plot, I'd say. That was, well, it was a little plot. There was a demonstration going on in the middle of Berlin on that day. It was going on for hours. They came by the thousands to demand Germany's government change its course in the corona crisis. From right-wing radicals to those who reject the authority of the German government or doubt the severity or even existence of the pandemic, they were unified by one belief. The government's measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic

go too far. And there was actually some rough goings on with the police, but they had kind of handled it better than other demonstrations and they couldn't get anywhere. And then when the police was kind of like, oh, it's going to end soon, and they were starting to pack up, I would say a group of some of the demonstrators just ran towards the Reichstagsgebäude, so to our Bundestag, the old Reichstagsbuilding.

And they made it up to the stairs, kind of like, I'm sorry for always comparing it to the capital thing. There's lots of differences there. But in that sense, they ran there like they did to the capital. But they stopped kind of at the end of the steps where there was two or three policemen. I don't remember right now, two or three that stood there and kind of said, no, you can't come in here. And they stopped. I mean, there were like, I don't know, two, three hundreds of them.

So if they wanted to, they could have gotten in, but they didn't because they hadn't planned it in the sense that we are running there and then we will do this and then we will do that. They just kind of used the moment. But apparently there have been some, or actually I read them afterwards in the telephone groups. They said, okay, we're going to get to the Bundestag. But they got onto the steps, but they didn't get in. Just to paint a bit more of a picture here, like these events have been accompanied by violence perpetrated by the right wing. I'm thinking of the murder of the pro-migrant politician Walter Lübcke in 2019.

And there were those terrible shootings right at two hookah lounges. That was 2020, I believe, that killed 10 people. Yes, there was the killings in Hanau and the killings in Halle and there was the killing of the politician Walter Lübcke. And there was actually years ago, there was also like an attack on a woman who was responsible for the migrant houses in Cologne who barely survived. There was also the NSU in Germany, which was like 10 people who, they killed 10 migrants and a policewoman. And so we have a history of really brutal right-wing extremist attacks, which is horrific. And I strongly recommend to

our politicians to do more against it. I suppose that brings me to my final question today, and perhaps you could reflect on it. With this context and all of these events leading up to this very serious plot, what kind of challenge do you think the German state is facing here? Well, I think that now they are more aware of like the problems and the dangers and they are looking better than before but they're still not doing enough to prevent this kind of action and to have more harder fight against it in the sense that you could have prevention programs that you can have more of a societal dialogue that you have to stop any kind of movement like this i mean i think the

the biggest mistake was when this demonstration started of course it's okay to demonstrate against covid measures to whatever but if you say you can demonstrate with your masks on you have to keep your distance you have to do this and this and this and then you don't do it then you have to stop the demonstration right and our police was very de-escalating because well well there's still normal people there it's not all right-wing extremists and let's keep it like this because there are quite a lot of them here and that kind of gave them this feeling of power. And from this feeling of power, they radicalized even more. And that is now the kind of groups that we find because lots of the people that we talked about today were on these demonstrations.

And on these demonstrations, journalists were attacked, policemen were attacked, policewomen were attacked. And they were always against the whole system of the state. So once a movement like this starts, you have to be really quick to analyze how dangerous is this and do something against it and not wait in the hope that it will stop once the measures go, because that's not happening, because they are getting more and more radicalized

because they keep reading only the stuff that is in the bubble already. And Katrin, thank you so much for this. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, that is all for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Shannon Higgins, Imogen Burchard, Lauren Donnelly, Rafferty Baker, Derek Vanderwyk, and Allie Janes. Thank you. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.