Germany's Nostalgic Pensioners -- Mass Psychosis?

"We've found weapons from a crossbow up to guns and munitions. That shows that this isn't harmless."

"[The plot, however, stood no chance of success though it was] dangerous [and] Now is the time to see just how far they got."

Holger Munch, head, federal crime agency, The Federal Criminal Police Office 

Among the 25 detained was a minor aristocrat called Heinrich XIII  DPA Picture Alliance

 

German prosecutors state that some among the arrested group of apprehended coup-masters held "concrete plans" to storm the Reichstag, Germany's government building, prepared to kill for their goal of installing a new monarchical regime to revive a German Empire from centuries before. The plan, described by an investigative detective to Die Welt newspaper was "a horror scenario that has never existed in this form in Germany".

Rather dramatizing an event that had a minuscule operational base, given that Germany in its entirety had once, mere generations earlier in the 20th century embroiled the world community in a world war to reach its domination aspirations when the real horror show was the industrialized slaughter of millions of Jews, Homosexuals, Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mentally and Physically impaired people with the focus on genocide, to wipe out an entire ethnic/religious community of Europeans.

Still, the police in Germany were busy seizing crossbows, firearms and night0-vision goggles, while conducting dozens of raids linked to the far-right coup plot. Over 50 disparate addresses held weapons and munitions. According to a report in Der Spiegel magazine, the confiscated items were inclusive of pistols, swords, stun guns, combat helmets, night-vision devices and service weapons of two police officers.

Large quantities of gold and silver were also said to have been found by investigators after the arrests on Wednesday of 25 people, among whom were mostly pensioners accused of forming a terror cell, the planners of the bizarre coup. Among those arrested was a chef of some fame, based in the luxury Austrian ski resort of Kitzbuhel. Chef Frank Heppner's responsibility was to organize the menu in canteens of the group's to-be-established kingdom and the organization of its troops' food.

The plotters have been identified as members of the Citizens of the Reich movement, an organization of about 20,000 who believe that Germany should revert to the era of the German Kaiser. The existence of the group was no secret, but well known and regarded as an assortment of conspiracy theorists. Suddenly they've become Germany's existential threat as a democratic nation.

To fortify their arguments that the situation must be taken seriously, prosecutors point  to the fact that several German army officers, retired and serving, were involved. Their purpose was to target military men and police officers for recruitment to their ranks. A proto-government had been set up where cabinet posts were apportioned, along with a military wing of the operation. The coup attempt appears to have been expected prior to Christmas.

Heinrich XIII, Prince Reuss, great-grandson of the head of a minor royal princedom in central Germany that ruled up to the dissolution of the empire following the First World War, was the head of the conspiracy. The arrests reflect radicalization among a quixotic mob of anti-vaxxers, civil esoterica and Kaiser nostalgics who joined to demonstrate against state pandemic measures.

A 75-year-old woman had been arrested in October, held to be the ringleader of a clandestine plan to kidnap Karl Lauterbach, Germany's minister of health.

German national flag flies atop the illuminated Reichstag building, the seat of Germany's lower house of parliament Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany December 9, 2022. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner