The Irish Times view on the trial of right-wing extremists in Germany: a bizarre story of our times

The opening in Stuttgart of a treason trial of nine members of a far-right group’s military wing, accused of plotting the violent overthrow of the German state, puts a sharp focus on the alarming threat of far-right extremists to Germany’s democratic institutions. The hearings, and two imminent associated trials in Munich and Frankfurt, are expected to be the longest in German postwar history.

The other trials will see 17 more of the group’s political leaders in the dock, including anti-Semitic aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, scion of a dynasty that ruled the east German province of Thuringia for 800 years. The Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Empire) movement hoped to install him as national leader.

The case opened just as the major political force in Germany’s far-right, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), also faced into its own scandal after revelations of close links between China and Russia and its two top European election candidates, Maximilian Krah and Petr Bystron. Polls report a sharp fall in AfD support.

The Reichsbürger, which rejects the legitimacy of the state of Germany, is reported to have some 23,000 members, 10 per cent of whom are reportedly ready to use violence. Prosecutors allege the group has been amassing arms and developing a network of 286 military cells across the country. It planned, they say, an attack on the Bundestag on “Day X” followed by insurrections around the country.

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Those on trial include former and existing members of the armed services as well as a police officer. One is also accused of shooting at two police officers who stormed his house to arrest him.

The Reichsbürger represents a bizarre but potentially lethal cocktail of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, racists, Nazi and Russian sympathisers, royalists, populists, cranks, many of them middle-class professionals.

In an era of conspiracy theories spread by social media and renewed support for extremist causes it is, unfortunately, a strange and bizarre story of our times.