Hundreds of police in pre-dawn raids swooped on 20 locations linked to the group “Saxonian Separatists” in formerly communist eastern Germany and neighbouring Poland, with locations also searched in Austria.

Federal prosecutors said the operation targeted “a militant group of 15 to 20 individuals whose ideology is characterised by racist, anti-Semitic and partially apocalyptic ideas”.

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” (Nazism) that would have sought to target “unwanted groups of people by means of ethnic cleansing”.

Prosecutors said the group “Saxonian Separatists”, with the initials SS like those of Adolf Hitler’s paramilitary organisation the Schutzstaffel, 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”.

More than 450 law enforcement personnel joined the operation, including state and federal police officers and commandos, in cooperation with the domestic intelligence service.

Their plan allegedly drew inspiration from the global QAnon movement and the German Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich), which reject the legitimacy of the modern German republic. According to Germany’s intelligence services, the country’s number of right-wing extremists considered potentially violent rose to 14,500 last year.