German authorities have detained eight alleged members of a neo-Nazi militant group, which prosecutors say was motivated by racist and conspiracy-driven ideology, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
The suspects, who had been preparing for combat to bring down the German state, were apprehended in a large-scale police operation involving around 450 officers, prosecutors announced.
The group, identified by prosecutors as "Saechsische Separatisten" or "Saxony Separatists," shares the initials "SS" with the Nazi party's infamous elite force.
“Our security authorities have thus thwarted at an early stage militant coup plans by right-wing terrorists, who were longing for a Day X to attack people and our state with armed force,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser in a statement quoted by Reuters.
According to local media reports, one of the suspects has ties to the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which currently holds up to 18% support in national polls, trailing only the center-right opposition. AfD denied any association with the group.
Prosecutors stated that the Saxony Separatists group was formed by November 2020 at the latest. “It is a militant group of 15 to 20 individuals whose ideology is characterized by racist, antisemitic, and partially apocalyptic ideas,” read a statement from the federal prosecutor’s office.
Believing that Germany is on the brink of collapse and awaiting a “Day X” when the government would fall, the group had been training to use force to establish a Nazi-inspired regime in eastern Germany, investigators said.
“If necessary, unwanted groups of people are supposed to be removed from the area by means of ethnic cleansing,” prosecutors noted.
The group’s suspected leader, a 23-year-old man identified as Joerg S., was apprehended in the Polish border town of Zgorzelec. The remaining suspects were arrested in eastern Germany, around Leipzig, Dresden, and Meissen.
Prosecutors reported that the suspects had been conducting urban warfare training and had acquired combat gear, including fatigues and bulletproof vests. They could face charges of involvement in a domestic terrorist organization, with some potentially prosecuted under juvenile law.
Spiegel Online identified one of the suspects as Kurt Haettasch, an AfD politician from Saxony, where the party nearly won a state election in September.
An AfD spokesperson responded, saying, “Our party stands firmly on the ground of a free and democratic basic order,” and stressed that the party had “nothing in common” with groups like the Saxony Separatists.