German prince arrested over plot to overthrow government has suspected business links to Britain
A German prince with suspected business links to Britain has been arrested in connection with an extremist plot to overthrow the country’s democratic Republic and install him as King.
Prosecutors have alleged that Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss was the leader of a sinister group conspiring since November 2021 to storm the Bundestag, the seat of the German parliament.
More than 3,000 police officers swooped on dozens of properties at dawn on Wednesday in one of the largest raids in modern German history.
Prince Heinrich XIII, a distant descendant of the Dutch monarchy, was among more than 20 suspects arrested.
German media reported he had a company with British links, which may have been involved in raising funds for the plot.
The 71-year-old Prince, a trained engineer and owner of a real estate firm, was held in Frankfurt am Main, where he has an apartment and an office.
The plotters, members of the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) movement, are also understood to have met at a castle and a hunting lodge in the rural Thuringian village of Saaldorf owned by the Prince.
Prosecutors said the Prince and his alleged fellow plotters formed a “terrorist organisation with the goal of overturning the existing state order in Germany and replacing it with their own form of state, which was already in the course of being founded”.
Prince Heinrich XIII is a descendant of the House of Reuss who ruled over parts of Germany for hundreds of years, until the collapse of the German empire in the wake of World War One.
Although other members of the wider Reuss family have described him as a “confused old man” and a conspiracy theorist, he is claimed to have been determined to overthrow the German government in a bid to install a new regime.
In an intercepted phone call this summer Prince Heinrich XIII is alleged to have said: “We're going to flatten them now, it's the end of the fun!"
Following the raids it emerged that a distant relative of Prince Heinrich XIII - Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss, Count of Plauen - was married to the Abba singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad until his death from cancer in 1999.
Several of the suspected Reichsbürger plotters are understood to have their roots in recent protests by anti-vaxxers and Covid deniers who tried to storm the Bundestag in August 2020, as well as the QAnon movement - who believe the US and other western nations are in the hands of a mythical "deep state" controlled by secret powers.
In anticipation of taking power, the group had even printed its own identity cards as the “German Reich Government in Exile” and were thought to have planned to use the failed storming of the US Capitol in January last year as a model for their own seizure of power.
Prince Heinrich 'made contact with Russia'
Prince Heinrich XIII had allegedly used intermediaries to make contact with Russia as part of the plot, hoping that the Putin regime would establish friendly relations with his new government.
Prosecutors say that there is no evidence that the Russian government responded to his efforts and the Russian embassy denied on Wednesday having any links to the organisation.
Police also raided the barracks where Germany's elite army unit is based, with arrests also made in Austria and northern Italy.
Prosecutors say the plotters were prepared to kill to achieve their aims and had targeted soldiers and police officers to join their conspiracy.
Plans to acquire weapons had already been made, while the group had started weapons training, the prosecutors said.
Several former soldiers are among the suspects as well as a serving senior officer in the elite KSK, the German version of the SAS.
Prosecutor Peter Frank said the plotters included former members of the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, who formed a “military arm . . . which as far as we understand was meant to be built into a new German army composed of as yet unfounded homeland security groups”.
He added: "The organisation is structured in a sort of council. This is supposed to be a sort of governmental organization and it was divided into ministries like a government. Individuals had already been earmarked to take over individual portfolios, including a former member of the German Bundestag for the justice portfolio."
Raids demonstrate 'depths of terrorist threat' Germany faces
Ms Malsack-Winkemann, 58, a former judge, is alleged to have provided the group with detailed information on the inside of the Reichstag building.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the raids demonstrated the "depths of terrorist threat" that Germany faces, adding that the group appeared to be "driven by violent coup fantasies and conspiracy ideologies."
Prosecutors said Prince Heinrich and his fellow plotters believed that a secret “alliance” of intelligence agents from around the world had already moved into Germany and a plan to overthrow the “deep state” was imminent.
In accordance with German laws of 1919 Prince Heinrich XIII held the title in name only, as part of his surname.
He was a descendant of Prince Heinrich XXVII of the House of Reuss Younger Line, who was forced to abdicate when the German Empire collapsed at the end of World War I, along with other monarchs who ruled over realms within Germany.
In 2019, the Prince delivered a keynote speech at a Worldwebforum event in Zurich, railing against both the abolition of the German monarchy - under which he maintained “people were leading happy lives" - and the waning of his family’s influence.
