German coup plotters heavily armed and ‘dangerous’: police chief

BERLIN: A German far-right group busted for plotting to topple the government were heavily armed and posed a real threat, the federal police chief said on Thursday.

Those arrested on Wednesday included “a dangerous mix of people with irrational convictions, some with a lot of money and others in possession of weapons”, Holger Muench told the ARD broadcaster.

They had put in place “a plan that they also intended to carry out... That makes it dangerous and that is why we intervened,” he said. Weapons were found in 50 of the locations searched, Muench said, including crossbows, rifles and ammunition.

Fifty-four people are under investigation for links to the group, which prosecutors say was planning to overthrow the German state and install its own government. Twenty-five people were arrested, including an ex-MP, former soldiers and aristocrat and businessman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss, who was reportedly earmarked to be Germany’s new leader after the coup.