Munich (dpa / lby) - After the major raid on so-called Reich citizens, Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) called for tough action. Our democracy is "very endangered" by such networks, Söder told the BR political magazine "Kontrovers". On Wednesday, the federal prosecutor had 25 people arrested in eleven federal states as well as in Italy and Austria. She accuses 22 of them of being a member of a terrorist organization that wanted to overthrow the political system in Germany.
"It's completely new proportions. It's not about a few misguided or misguided people," said Söder on the program on Wednesday evening. In this group, "high potential for violence" is to be expected. "So we have to be more than careful." Anyone who believes in an "arms overthrow" must reckon with the full severity of the rule of law. "We in Bavaria are very, very tough and I'm glad that's the case across Germany." About 3,000 police officers were involved in the action on Wednesday.
According to Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU), six people were arrested in Bavaria - according to the investigators, two of them belonged to the "leadership" of a "military arm" of the group that wanted to overthrow the state order in Germany and replace it with its own. The latter had been worked out in outline. According to the federal prosecutor's office, the terrorist group would have accepted the dead for its goal.
"Reich citizens" are people who do not recognize the Federal Republic and its democratic structures. They often refuse to pay taxes and are often in conflict with authorities. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution ascribes around 21,000 followers to the scene.
According to the authorities, around five percent of them, i.e. around 1,150, are right-wing extremists. In 2021, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution attributed 1,011 extremist crimes to the "Reichsbürger und Selbstverwalter" scene.
