German extremists charged with forming terrorist group

German prosecutors have charged members of the right-wing organization Revolution Chemnitz with forming a terrorist group. A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe confirmed that the members had been charged with forming the group in September in order to plan and carry out terrorist attacks. According to local media reports, members of the group had planned to orchestrate a civil war-like rebellion in Berlin on October 2, 2018.

The assassination-style murder of a pro-migrant German politician by a far-right extremist has raised fears of growing neo-Nazi terrorism in the country. A German far-right sympathizer suspected of murdering a pro-immigration conservative politician has confessed to the crime, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said yesterday. Federal prosecutor general Peter Frank told members of parliament's internal affairs committee that Stephan E. had confessed to shooting Walter Luebcke, who was found lying in a pool of blood outside his home in the state of Hesse on June 2. Luebcke's murder has revived a debate about whether Germany has been doing enough to combat far-right groups since the chance discovery in 2011 of a neo-Nazi cell, the National Socialist Underground (NSU), whose members had murdered eight Turks, a Greek man and a German policewoman from 2000 to 2007.

The murder of a politician has also revealed the extent of growing far-right terrorism in the country. Germany is home to some 12,700 potentially violent far-right radicals, according to the BfV domestic intelligence agency. A Civey poll this week showed 60 percent of Germans think the government is "doing too little" to tackle the problem. As support for the far-right has increased over the last four years, German authorities are increasingly concerned over growing right-wing terrorism in the country. Lately, a secret report by the BfV revealed in May that right-wing extremists are preparing for "a civil war scenario" by training to use firearms and explosives. Those people are believed to be collecting firearms and other supplies in preparation for "a civil war" or "a feared collapse of public order" in the country.