Far-right German group raided after massacre

GERMAN police have raided sites linked to a far-right group banned by the interior ministry weeks after a suspected extremist gunman shot dead nine people with migrant backgrounds.

“Police measures are going on in 10 states,” Steve Alter, an interior ministry spokesman wrote on Twitter.

“For the first time, the interior minister has banned a Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich) group. Even in these times of crisis, we will fight far-right extremism, racism and anti-semitism.”

The United German Peoples and

Tribes organisation, which was banned yesterday, belongs to a wider Citizens of the Reich movement fed by conspiracy theories. Its adherents question the legitimacy of the modern Federal Republic of Germany and have in the past entered into armed confrontations with police.

In a 2016 shoot-out, a Reichsbuergerlinked man killed one police officer and wounded two more. He was later sentenced to life in prison.

After a racist gunman shot killed nine people of migrant backgrounds in Hanau last month, Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, declared far-right extremism “the biggest security threat facing Germany” and announced increased police measures.

Mr Seehofer said the far-right had left “a trail of blood” in recent months. Two people had died in an attack on a synagogue in Halle in October and a pro-migrant politician was murdered at his home last June.

Separately, 12 men were arrested in Germany in February on suspicion of planning attacks on mosques. The government has announced hundreds of new posts for federal police and security services and is considering tighter laws on gun ownership.