Stuttgart, 22 June 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Police raided the homes of five people in an operation targeting a right-wing extremist group that allegedly aimed to overthrow the German government, an official said on Wednesday.

The searches were carried out at the homes of four men from Baden-Württemberg in south west Germany and one person from Lower Saxony in the country's north west, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Attorney General said on Wednesday evening.

"In all five cases, it is a matter of suspicion of membership in a terrorist organization," she said.

The operation related to a large-scale raid that had targeted the entrepreneur Heinrich XIII Prince Reuß as a suspected ringleader, her statement said.

The police were active in Aldingen, Empfingen, St. Johann, Ebersbach an der Fils and Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, and in Hameln in Lower Saxony, according to Spiegel news magazine.

No arrests were made.

Reich Citizens, or Reichsbürger in German, question the legitimacy of the German Federal Republic. Germany's security service believes around 23,000 people belong to the Reich Citizen and the wider "self-governing" scene.

The latest searches come after a large-scale raid targetting a Reich Citizens group last December.

Following the raids, the Federal Prosecutor's Office had more than two dozen suspects arrested in Germany, Austria and Italy, among them former officers, police officers and a former member of the Bundestag for the far-right Alternative for Germany.

The police also seized numerous weapons.

The suspects belonged to an unnamed terrorist movement linked to the Reichsbürger movement, prosecutors said.

Followers of the Reichsbürger ideology, which is fuelled by conspiracy theories, often believe in the continued existence of Imperial or Nazi Germany, under a German Reich based on pre-World War II borders.

The group surrounding Reuß, who is also in custody, allegedly planned to overthrow the German political system by force and install a new government.

Officials say the group had a military arm that was supposed to procure weapons. They say the group was prepared for lives to be sacrificed in the pursuit of its aims.

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