Twenty-five people arrested by German security forces in nationwide raids targeting an extremist group are accused of masterminding a coup d'etat, Attorney General Peter Frank said Wednesday.
The arrested are accused of support for or membership in a terrorist organization, Frank confirmed.
"According to our findings, the aim of the association is to eliminate the existing state order in Germany, the basic free democratic order, using violence and military means," Frank said.
A former member of the Bundestag was supposed to take over the justice portfolio in a new government that the suspects wanted to form, Frank told reporters in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe.
Among the suspects is the Berlin judge and former member of parliament for the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann.
"Those arrested adhere to conspiracy myths consisting of various narratives of the Reichsbürger ideology as well as the QAnon ideology," Frank said.
In addition to the group's decision-making "council," the group apparently had a military arm. "This military arm is there to build up a new German army," Frank said.
The Defense Ministry had earlier announced that there were a total of three soldiers among the suspects, including one soldier from the Special Forces Command (KSK) on active duty and two other non-active soldiers.
