Officials said they opened an operation in the eastern city of Dresden on Wednesday after a key lawmaker who supports coronavirus vaccinations received murder threats, according to authorities.
Following threats from an anti-vaccine organization against state premier Michael Kretschmer, Saxony’s security forces performed raids. Police claimed in a statement that “statements from certain members of the gang suggested they could carry genuine weapons,” but did not say whether any arrests had been made.
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The inquiry was launched after journalists from the German public broadcaster ZDF broke into an encrypted Telegram discussion and reported on December 7 that Kretschmer had received death threats.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the contents of communications reportedly involving a hundred members of the chat group “connected by their antagonism to vaccinations, the state, and present health policy” were exposed by ZDF.
Audio messages called for opposing “if necessary with weapons” the measures in place, targeting politicians and, in particular, state premier Kretschmer. Authorities suspect “the preparation of a violent crime that threatens the state,” Saxony police said on Twitter.
Anti-vaccination movement
A large, partly radicalised movement has emerged in Germany against health restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is particularly strong in Saxony, in former communist East Germany, one of the regions worst hit by the resurgent coronavirus and where the vaccination rate is lower than the national average.
At the beginning of December, protestors gathered outside the house of the Saxony state minister of health with torches and whistles, a demonstration which was condemned by politicians. In the midst of a strong fourth wave of the virus, the German government decided to strengthen restrictions on unvaccinated people, banning them from public venues, restaurants, and non-essential commerce.
Compulsory vaccination could be voted on by the German parliament in the coming weeks, with the obligation to get the jab coming into force in February or March. The number of individuals opposed to the health restrictions and prepared to use violence was between 15,000 and 20,000, Social Democrat security expert Sebastian Fiedler said on Tuesday in an interview with the German daily Bild.
Stronger response
The former East German states, including Saxony, are particularly fertile territory for the new fringe movement. Public protests against the restrictions are almost daily and sometimes result in violence. The president of Germany’s conference of interior ministers, Thomas Strobl, has called for a strong response from the federal government.
Individuals who threaten the constitution “leave the common ground of our democracy and will be held to account using all the power that’s available under the rule of law,” Strobl, the interior minister in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, told the Funke media group.
“We have to act more resolutely against incitements to violence and hatred on the internet,” the new federal interior minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday, noting that the messaging services were “subject to the same rules as Twitter or Facebook” to counter illegal content.