At dawn on Wednesday 3,000 German police and special forces arrested dozens of members of the Reichsbürger movement, a diffuse far-right extremist alliance whose members question the legal authority of the German government.
Those arrested are suspected of plotting a coup that would install one of them as a new German monarch.
It is a story that blends German history with modern Q-Anon conspiracy theories and far-right politics.
In Germany the coup plot is front-page news, even if less discussed than the failure of the national football team at the World Cup, says Berlin correspondent Derek Scally.
But while the plotters appear to be something of a motley crew, the case should be a wake-up call in a country with a dark history of far-right politics and recent problems with extremism within its own military.
On this episode of In the news, Derek tells the strange story to Conor Pope.
