German police on Tuesday arrested eight suspected members of a right-wing extremist group that had trained for what they expected would be the collapse of state order, prosecutors said.
Hundreds of police in pre-dawn raids swooped on 20 locations linked to the militant group "Saxonian Separatists" in formerly communist eastern Germany and neighboring Poland, with locations also searched in Austria.
Federal prosecutors said the operation targeted "a militant group of 15 to 20 individuals whose ideology is characterized by racist, anti-Semitic and partially apocalyptic ideas".
The prosecutors said the group's members, mostly young men, strongly rejected Germany's liberal democratic order and believed the government was nearing "collapse" on an unspecified "Day X".
In anticipation of that day, the militants had planned to take control of parts of their state of Saxony and potentially other east German regions.
Their plan was "to establish governmental and societal structures inspired by National Socialism" that would have sought to target "unwanted groups of people by means of ethnic cleansing".
They had conducted paramilitary training in combat gear, with a focus on "urban warfare and firearms handling" as well as marching and patrolling.
Authorities partially named the suspects, all German nationals, as alleged ringleader Joern S. and members Kurt H., Karl K., Kevin M., Hans-Georg P., Kevin R., Joerg S. and Norman T.
They were arrested in and near the cities of Leipzig and Dresden, with Joerg S., 23, detained in Poland.
Prosecutors said raids on Tuesday also targeted the premises of individuals not considered suspects in Austria, including the capital Vienna.
- 'Longing for Day X' -
News weekly Der Spiegel wrote that one of the suspects, Kurt H., is a member of the youth wing of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), and that he suffered a gunshot wound during the arrest.
Spiegel, citing unnamed security sources, said that he had reached for a rifle and police commandos fired two "warning shots".
Kurt H. collapsed with a shot wound to the jaw which was not life-threatening, and it remained unclear whether the bullet was discharged by a police gun or his own rifle, the report said.
The anti-immigration AfD is especially popular in the east of Germany and made strong gains in regional elections in the states of Thuringia and Brandenburg in September.
Prosecutors said the group "Saxonian Separatists", with the initials SS, was founded about four years ago and that its members had since then made "continuous preparations for the perceived inevitable and violent change of government".
The group had procured camouflage fatigues, combat helmets, gas masks and bullet-proof vests, prosecutors said in a statement.
More than 450 law enforcement personnel joined the operation, including state and federal police officers and commandos, in cooperation with the domestic intelligence service.
The men arrested were due to face the Federal Court of Justice in the western city of Karlsruhe on Tuesday and Wednesday with judges set to decide whether to keep them in pre-trial detention.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser thanked the security services, whom she said had "thwarted at an early stage militant plans for a coup by right-wing terrorists who were longing for a Day X to attack people and the state with armed force".
Germany has dismantled several far-right cells in recent years, including a bizarre plot led by an aristocrat who has been on trial for planning a coup.
Their plan to overthrow Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government allegedly drew inspiration from the global QAnon movement and the German Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich) extremist movement that rejects the legitimacy of the modern German republic.
According to the latest report from Germany's intelligence services, the country's number of right-wing extremists considered potentially violent rose to 14,500 last year.
© Agence France-Presse