BERLIN (Reuters) – German police have arrested eight suspected members of a right-wing militant group driven by racist ideology and conspiracy theories who had been training in warfare for the downfall of the modern German state, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The suspects are part of an organisation formed no later than November 2020 called “Saechsische Separatisten”, or Saxonian Separatists, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“It is a militant group of 15 to 20 individuals whose ideology is characterised by racist, anti-Semitic and partially apocalyptic ideas,” the statement added.
Convinced that Germany is nearing collapse, with the fall of government and society prophesied for an undetermined “Day X”, the group had been training to use force to establish a new system in the country’s east inspired by National Socialism, according to investigators.
“If necessary, unwanted groups of people are supposed to be removed from the area by means of ethnic cleansing,” the statement said.
Those arrested include four suspected founding members, identified as Joerg S., Joern S., Karl K. and Norman T.
Seven of the suspects were captured in and around the eastern cities of Leipzig, Dresden and Meissen, while another was taken into custody in the Polish border town of Zgorzelec.
(Reporting by Rachel More, Editing by Miranda Murray)
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