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Nearly a year and a half after police and intelligence officers in Germany uncovered a plot to overthrow the country\u2019s government and replace its chancellor, the first of three trials in the sprawling case began on Monday in Stuttgart.<\/p>\n
Most of the would-be insurrectionists were arrested in December 2022, when heavily armed German police officers stormed houses, apartments, offices and a remote royal hunting lodge<\/a> and made dozens of arrests. Those eventually charged included a dentist, a clairvoyant, an amateur pilot and a man running a large QAnon social media group. The German authorities contend that their figurehead was Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss, an obscure and conspiracy-minded aristocrat<\/a> who would have been made chancellor if the coup had succeeded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Despite that idiosyncratic membership, the group was well organized and dangerous, investigators said. Some of its members were former officers trained by German elite military forces. One was a judge turned far-right lawmaker with Alternative for Germany, the surging populist party<\/a> known as the AfD. The police said the group had stashed more than a half-million dollars in gold and cash; amassed hundreds of firearms, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition and a cache of explosives; and secured satellite phones to communicate once it disabled national communications networks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAll the satirical elements that are naturally present in this group \u2014 elements of QAnon<\/a>, the belief in U.F.O.s, esotericism, the idea of being able to overthrow the system of the Federal Republic of Germany \u2014 should not distract from the fact that this group posed a grave potential threat,\u201d said Jan Rathje, a member of a nongovernmental organization that monitors conspiracy theories and right-wing extremism.<\/p>\n In a wood-paneled courtroom in Stuttgart on Monday, federal prosecutors started trying to prove that the group came dangerously close to launching an attack on the democratic foundation of Europe\u2019s largest country.<\/p>\n The trial is the first of three set for this spring and could take years to complete. It takes place as Germany wrestles with continuing fears about a rising far right in its politics<\/a> and a week after the arrests of several people accused of spying for Russia<\/a> and for China<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 26 defendants set to face trial this spring (a 27th died in jail last month) are part of a growing and increasingly dangerous movement called Reichsb\u00fcrger, or citizens of the Reich.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n What sets them apart from other far-right extremists, according to the German authorities and experts on right-wing extremism, is their refusal to accept the idea of the modern German state, which some of them contend is actually a corporation run by shadowy bureaucrats of a \u201cDeep State.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Once dismissed as harmless eccentrics, Reichsb\u00fcrger used to be known more for making their own passports or for refusing to pay taxes or government fines. But that view changed in 2016 when a follower killed a police officer during a raid on his home.<\/p>\n While the authorities put the number of active members of the Reichsb\u00fcrger movement in Germany at around 23,000<\/a>, experts say the actual number is far higher. Last year, a study<\/a> suggested that nearly 5 percent of Germans were open to some form of the conspiracy-based ideology.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if many of the ideologies of the Reichsb\u00fcrger seem bizarre \u2014 extremists often pursue far-fetched goals \u2014 that does not make them any less dangerous,\u201d Konstantin von Notz, the chair of Germany\u2019s parliamentary intelligence oversight committee, said in an email exchange.<\/p>\n Prosecutors believe the accused plotters \u2014 21 men and five women \u2014 were at one point planning to begin the coup by attacking Germany\u2019s Parliament. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers would be tied up and presented on national television to convince the public of the regime change, according to a version of the plan that leaked last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As part of the planning, they said, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, the former AfD lawmaker, had led three of the men \u2014 at least two of them military-trained \u2014 into Parliament, where they scouted and photographed the premises.<\/p>\n Later, the focus moved to plans for setting up a replacement government, quelling local dissent and recruiting soldiers for an army loyal to their cause.<\/p>\n The nine defendants on trial in Stuttgart are accused of being part of the \u201cmilitary arm\u201d of the plot. Prosecutors contend that they were responsible for organizing and recruiting for the 286 \u201chomeland protection brigades\u201d that the plotters planned to deploy. These brigades, prosecutors will argue, were intended to put down resistance and liquidate enemies at the local level once the national government had been overthrown.<\/p>\n The defendants, all men, face charges of planning treasonous action and joining a terrorist organization. Both charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years, although a combined sentence could be longer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some of the accused are also charged with breaking weapons laws, and one is facing charges of attempted murder for shooting a police officer during his arrest.<\/p>\n Federal prosecutors read out their case against the men, aged 42 to 60. The prosecutors focused first on a defendant identified only as Markus L., in accordance with German privacy rules, who is accused of having shot and severely wounded an officer when the police came to arrest him in March 2023.<\/p>\n The court will spend until July considering that part of the case. Prosecutors say it will show that, despite their beliefs in bizarre conspiracy theories, the men were dangerous.<\/p>\n One of the defense lawyers, Viktoria Dannenmaier, who represents a defendant called Mr. von H., complained that documents from the investigation had leaked to the news media.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a political trial,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Do not expect verdicts soon. German trials of this complexity can take years to prosecute, and this case already involves more than a dozen judges and nearly 100 defense lawyers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Next month, Prince Heinrich XIII, his Russian girlfriend and the group\u2019s founders will begin their trial, in Frankfurt. Because of the large number of participants \u2014 seven men and two women are on trial in those proceedings, attended by an array of judges, lawyers and court officials \u2014 a new temporary courtroom had to be built on the city outskirts to handle the trial.<\/p>\n A third trial, held at a high-security court in Munich, will deal with eight more defendants accused of serving as the plot\u2019s leadership council, the coup\u2019s cabinet in waiting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWho are the people accused of plotting to overthrow the government?<\/h2>\n
How was the coup supposed to unfold?<\/h2>\n
Who is on trial first?<\/h2>\n
What happened on the first day?<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s next?<\/h2>\n