Six men were arrested in Germany Monday on suspicion of forming a far-Right terror cell and planning violent attacks on politicians and immigrants in order to overthrow the government.
The six men, who are all German nationals aged between 20 and 30, tried to obtain semi-automatic weapons and were planning to carry out a terror attack Wednesday, prosecutors said in a statement.
They were held in a series of early morning police raids in Chemnitz, the east German city that was the scene of neo-Nazi riots in August. A seventh suspect was arrested two weeks ago.
“According to investigations so far, the accused had a “revolutionary” aim based on their far-Right beliefs of overthrowing the democratic constitutional state,” prosecutors said.
The German press described the arrested men as planning a “far-Right revolution”. It is unclear how close they were to achieving their aims.
The seven suspects were planning violent attacks on politicians and prominent members of society as well as immigrants, according to prosecutors.
They formed an extremist group under the name “Revolution Chemnitz” no later than September 11, two weeks after the east German city was shaken by violent protests over the death of a man in a suspected stabbing by migrants.
Five of the men carried out an attack on immigrants in central Chemnitz on September 14, armed with glass bottles, knuckle-dusters and electric stun guns. One migrant was seriously injured after he was hit in the head with a bottle.
“According to the investigation, the attack was supposed to be a ‘dry run’ for an event the suspects planned for October 3, details of which are not yet fully clear,” prosecutors said.
It appears the group may have been planning considerably more violence.
According to prosecutors, they were trying to obtain semi-automatic weapons when police decided to act.
Wednesday, the day of the planned attack, is a national public holiday to mark the reunification of Germany.
Prosecutors identified one of the seven suspects, named only as Christian K under German privacy laws, as the ringleader of the group. He was held two weeks ago in connection with the “dry run” attack in Chemnitz and it may have been his arrest which led police to the group.
Police intercepted phone calls and online chats in which the group spoke of carrying out attacks on politicians and journalists, who they described as “the media dictatorship and its slaves”, according to an unconfirmed report in Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
The cell planned a bigger campaign of violence than the National Socialist Underground (NSU), Germany’s deadliest postwar far-Right terror group, the newspaper claimed.
The arrests appear to vindicate Angela Merkel’s claims that immigrants were “hunted” during far-Right protests in Chemnitz. Hans-Georg Massen, the former head of German domestic intelligence, was removed from his post after he publicly contradicted Mrs Merkel over the claim.