In April, a group that wanted to kidnap Karl Lauterbach was caught. Meanwhile, the investigators know disturbing details. So the minister should be overwhelmed in a talk show.
The alleged terrorist group, which is said to have planned the kidnapping of Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), among other things, had an undercover investigator in its ranks for months. According to a decision by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) published on Monday, the man was employed “in the immediate vicinity of the accused” between November 2021 and April 2022. The investigator from the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office took part in group meetings and was involved in chats via the Telegram messenger service.
The investigators now know many details about the kidnapping plans from this LKA man and two confessed group members in custody, which were to go hand in hand with a power failure lasting at least two weeks and culminate in a coup d’etat. So there was the idea of having the minister kidnapped by fighters from a talk show in front of the cameras, as the BGH judges write.
Group in custody
The four Germans who are said to have formed the core of the group have been in custody for more than six months. They were arrested on April 13 after one of the men met the undercover agent about a gun deal in various locations in Germany. A number of firearms and ammunition, cash, gold bars, silver coins and foreign currency were seized during nationwide searches.
A little later, the federal prosecutor’s office took over the investigation. At that time it was said that a fifth suspect was also being investigated, about whom no information was given. In mid-October, the federal prosecutor’s office also had a retired teacher arrested in Saxony, who is also said to have had a superior position in the group.
The “Spiegel” reported in July that one of the men had made a confession. Among other things, he testified that during the coup it had been planned to have a doppelganger of the Federal President or the Chancellor appear. In the meantime, at the beginning of October, a second man “extensively confessed,” as the BGH decision states.
Quirky details
The details that the investigators found out in this way sometimes seem bizarre. So there should have been a kind of vote in closed chat groups about who should be the kidnapping victim. The majority then chose Lauterbach as the “most hated” leader.
Before that, however, they wanted to secure the recognition of the new government abroad. According to the investigation, a group of about five delegates was supposed to take a ship across the Baltic Sea to be apprehended by the navy in front of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The group hoped to be able to speak to President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
The new constitution should be based on the imperial constitution of 1871 – only without king or emperor. For this purpose, women’s suffrage was planned “as a necessary adaptation to modern times”.
According to the BGH ruling, the men met each other through chat groups “in which people from the scenes of the so-called “Reichsbürger” and “lateral thinkers”, supporters of National Socialist ideas, conspiracy theorists, so-called “preppers” and critics of the state corona policy would have exchanged views on the common rejection of the (…) German state”. The first meeting then took place on December 11th at a barbecue hut in Rhineland-Palatinate. Later there were other, larger meetings in Hesse and Thuringia.
According to earlier information, those arrested in April came from Neustadt an der Weinstrasse (Rhineland-Palatinate), Falkensee near Berlin and from the districts of Landshut (Bavaria) and Ammerland (Lower Saxony). The reason for the involvement of the responsible BGH Senate was a detention review at the beginning of November. All four remain in custody.
According to the BGH, the federal prosecutor’s office is now working on the indictment. In the meantime, the accusation of “preparing a highly treasonous company” has also been raised. Here, however, the judges express doubts. It “could be questionable” whether the planned actions “were already sufficiently concrete in terms of subject matter, location and time”.
Source: Stern
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