The German authorities announced the failure of the coup d’état. According to the Die Zeit newspaper, on the morning of December 7, about three thousand police officers came with searches in more than 130 houses and apartments across the country. 25 people from the right-wing radical group “Reichsburgers” were arrested – they do not recognize the current German state and want to restore the country within the borders before 1939. Lead the Reich in their view of the debts of the past influential family of Reuss.

The police contacted the conspirators after she was detained by a former German soldier who was found to have a weapon. Authorities have begun to gather information about his background and the scope that the conspirators are recruiting former military and police officers into their ranks.

Vitaly B., according to the press service of the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office. According to investigators, Vitalia is highly resistant to “Reichsburgers”.

What happened as a result of the right-wing radical group, what does Russia have to do with it, now I talked with a political scientist Alexey Yusupov.

Do you understand what happened in Germany?

– Yes. From within Germany, perhaps, this is more understandable. This is not a new story. “Reichsburgers” – I would not talk about their movement, it is rather a social environment of people who, for various reasons, at some point decided that they did not want to be citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany. They contain a variety of ideological constructions: either about the fact that the German Reich still exists, or about the fact that the FRG is a private corporation, and all power is believed to belong to concerns. Various conspiracies.

What is happening is an absolutely aggressive attitude towards allergies. Therefore, for the past few years, the cell plan has been observed – 10, 20, 50 people – who are under observation. At some point, the sense organs consider that they are strong enough, there is enough evidence base and they can be closed.

Therefore, on the one hand, yes, on a scale this is unprecedented, because seizures and searches took place not only in different parts of Germany, but even in Austria and Italy. On the other hand, unfortunately, this is not a new thing, it simply says that there are people in German society who continue to be in the process of internal radicalization. And, probably, the pandemic years have intensified and worsened, because there the anti-waxer agenda has merged with the Reichsburger one, and they have become more aggressive.

How often do people meet goals? The German government and police are talking about some kind of coup, which they called ready. there must have been something armed?

“The targets meet because there is enough information about how they themselves will taste them. I can voice them, and you yourself will understand what the level of the mental state of people is. They believe that by provoking either an armed seizure of power, or a clash with the political system, or the “taking of the Reichstag”, as he recommended on the steps in front of the Reichstag last year, or it would be elected about secession from the FRG of some part – Thuringia , resulting in the resident castle of Prince Reuss. And this is their mistake, that behind them there will be a large number of inaudible, invisible, but very dissatisfied countries and the reality in which they live, police, military and other specialists. That is, these people thought they were the vanguard of a quick reaction, a “back to the past” revolution. And this is their mistake.

If you plan how they were going to storm the Reichstag, it becomes clear that they, of course, are not all very healthy in the head, because it was about the use of electromagnetic weapons in order to disable the security system around the Reichstag attack. It is this conspiracy group’s own absolute megalomania and loss of contact with reality: they really, I believe, appreciate that the whole country is already for them.

“You say they made plans. Did they buy weapons?

“It’s not even about buying weapons. In general, the whole thread of investigations by the police and the prosecutor’s office begins in many respects precisely with the fact that sometimes weapons are missing from stocks. These are the former soldiers we are talking about in the usual case: one former senior officer of the paratrooper regiment is something like an airborne assault, one is actually entering the service as a soldier.

Most likely, they passed through common stocks during the census or when dumping old stocks of the GDR, that is, the people’s army of the GDR, which, of course, had significant stocks of equipment and ammunition, things disappeared from there. It’s been a long time. That’s why I say that this is not a new story. cover the 90s, these gigantic warehouses are not well guarded, there are no working hands, many were fired from contacts in the security forces after the reunification of Germany. At this time, many attacks disappeared. As I understand it, this is a mixture of stolen weapons, smuggling, something additionally purchased.

But these people behaved very arrogantly. The police are known to be even inspecting the abandoned empty huts in points in Germany and discussing where they will place their new guardsmen who will join them after the coup. Again, the level of loss of contact with reality is very high.

– Can you say the presence again – How many people support all this and prepare some kind of plans?

– Arrested 24 or 25 people.

– Twenty-five out of 52 is such a number.

– Yes, out of 52. That is, these are those 25 that either appoint a leadership role or replace real criminal activity. That is, the same number of sympathizers, participants in these plans. Of course, they themselves always exaggerate their numbers. Similar groups, for example, in 2015 there was the Hannibal network, a connection of different soldiers. They claimed that there were 200-300 people with them actively performing military service, but then there were 40. . I think that we are really talking about several thousand people, among the existing ones who are quite aggressive and active, so that they resort to some kind of action.

But this is such an onion. The lower the level of participation, the more people we include in this area. Therefore, among the offended are two AfD politicians, because there is an intersection, of course, with the electorate of the Alternative for Germany. And there are sympathizers at the level that they do not like the current system, that they consider their politicians corrupt, that they would feel revolutionary changes, they are probably worried about tens of thousands. But if you go down to the level: “Who is ready to do something?” – then it is mainly these dozens, these are often elderly people. And this former commander of the parachute regiment, in question, is long retired. By the way, he was fired because he was convicted of apparently stealing or taking weapons from the GDR warehouses without permission.

That is, it is far from active and not a large part of the population or the armed forces. But this is a serious threat, because, as noted in the story of the Hannibal network, 20, 30, 40 armed and aggressive people are enough, which can have significant losses. Of course, there is no risk to the stable Federal Republic of Germany, but given their level of insanity, they may well start something that was implemented by a viral act, where people will suffer or even die. Therefore, accordingly, tough. But we are not talking about some serious threat to the constitutional order. This is, of course, ridiculous.

– On the case of the detention of Russian citizens, which was visited by the Russian consulate in Leipzig, and in connection with this the consulate was visited by Henry XIII. It is assumed that they detect a connection with government agencies. But the German prosecutor’s office noted that there were no signs that the representative had somehow responded positively to these proposals. Why do you think Russia is at the core of its history?

– You see, the radicals in Germany – both the most left, the most right, and in some cases we are talking about right-wing radicals – have such a romantic idea that Russia will help them in their need to turn the world upside down. The reasons are very different. Left extremists also have a myth that Russia and the tradition of the Soviet Union are such an export of South America, so it will help. And the right, as in the case, has such an idea that Russia is a stronghold of hands, male leadership, conservative events.

Therefore, naturally, when a real alternative arose in Germany – the non-party “Alternative for Germany”, a real alternative to the political regime – Russia will come to their aid. This reveals, I think, their numerous common meetings, that they only need to push a little, and then they use it. And this, of course, is also a huge misconception and mistake, and they do not approach that even if they wanted to make some proposals towards Moscow, this is not done at the consulate in Leipzig, where they come to have tea with the consuls at the beginning of time . Therefore, this is a story about the romanticism of the fact that dissatisfied and very unflammable people continue to live in the interests of the world and modern Germany, people are looking for an alternative. It’s such a fantasy. And in their view, the Russian Federation is the force that is once again putting its own world back in order.

– Do you think that the fact that they were detained right now is somehow connected with the fact that Russia is now war in Ukraine? Did this moment coincide?

– I don’t think it’s related. I think he matched. This is most likely due to the fact that the investigation, which began against the background of the activation of groups during the pandemic of protests, yielded a sufficient amount of materials. The fact that they are preparing to be hostages of the Minister of Health. That is, this aggressive anti-vaxxer position, which is superimposed on the Reichsburger position, should be dealt with in more detail as a reason for persecution. Here they have accumulated a sufficient amount of information. I do not see any connection with what is happening in Ukraine.