Nationwide raid on Reich citizens: ex-policeman from Hanover arrested
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Nationwide raid on Reich citizens: ex-policeman from Hanover arrested
Strike against “Reich citizens”: Thousands of police officers like here in Frankfurt searched objects in Lower Saxony, among other places, on Wednesday.
© Source: Boris Rössler/dpa
Hanover. In a nationwide anti-terrorist operation with around 3,000 police officers against the “Reichsbürger” scene, investigators arrested two suspects in Lower Saxony. According to the federal prosecutor in Karlsruhe, Michael F. in the Hildesheim district and Melanie R. in the Peine district were arrested. A total of 25 suspects were arrested on Wednesday morning. They are considered members of a terrorist organization and are said to have planned a coup in Germany.
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According to information from this editorial team, Michael F. is a former police officer from Hanover who has since been eliminated from the civil service. F. was first noticed as a corona denier in August 2020 at a “lateral thinking” demonstration in Dortmund and was released shortly afterwards. According to information from this newspaper, Melanie R. is said to be F.’s partner. R is therefore an alternative practitioner in the district of Peine.
The federal prosecutor accuses the former police officer of having been part of the group’s alleged gun ownership. Among the two leaders, according to media reports, the former paratrooper Rüdiger v. P., F. is said to have formed the multi-headed management staff together with another. This dealt “among other things with the recruitment of new members, the procurement of weapons and other equipment”. In addition, the establishment of a bug-proof communication and IT structure, the implementation of target practice and plans for the future accommodation and catering of the “home security companies” should have been part of it.
Therefore, according to the Attorney General, all members of the Bundeswehr and the police were the focus of recruitment. Therefore, F. should be married to Rüdiger v. in November 2022. P. and the also pursued Marco v. H. and Thomas M. specifically tried to win over police officers in northern Germany. It is fitting that F. was a co-initiator of the “Policemen for Enlightenment” association as early as spring 2021 – which is why the goings-on were also examined in detail by the Schleswig-Holstein Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The chairman was the “lateral thinker” and ex-policeman Karl H. († 64), who was very active in Bavaria until his death in November 2021.
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F. has become more and more radical since his first public appearance in Dortmund. For decades he was previously an inconspicuous officer at the Hanover police department, most recently in the prevention department. In Dortmund, the then 57-year-old saw a second Nazi dictatorship because of the Corona measures and doubted the work of his own colleague. Security forces in Germany had already “submitted themselves to unconditional obedience”.
Immediately after the performance, in which F. publicly identified himself on stage as a police officer from Hanover, the authorities suspended him. Among other things, two searches followed in F’s house in the district of Hildesheim. The officer in the “lateral thinker” scene presented himself more and more as a “policeman with heart and brain”, at demonstrations throughout Germany there were further arrests. More than 8,300 people now follow F’s account on the Telegram messenger, which appeals to “Querdenkern”. Most recently, he posted something about the expected nationwide warning day: He interpreted the general tips to always have an emergency supply of groceries in the house as an announcement of final expected power outages and unrest. F. therefore already saw a “military curfew” on Germany.
According to the Federal Prosecutor General in Karlsruhe, there were a total of more than 130 searches in eleven federal states. In Lower Saxony there were further searches of other suspects in Hanover, in the Celle district and in the Harburg district. 25 people have been arrested. In November, suspects in northern Germany specifically wanted to win over police officers for the association.