Five individuals have been sentenced to prison in Germany for their involvement in a plot to kidnap the country’s health minister and disrupt the government. The court found that the group, known as the “United Patriots,” planned to create a power outage and use the resulting chaos to reinstate a 19th-century Constitution that would give power to an all-powerful Kaiser. The individuals were convicted of founding or joining a terrorist group, treason, and owning weapons and explosives. A spokesperson for the court said that the trial aimed to show that a democratic state can handle such threats through a fair and independent trial. The main figure of the group received an eight-year sentence, while another group member who frequently disrupted court hearings with antisemitic and conspiracy theory statements received a sentence of seven years and nine months. The three other individuals received varying sentences ranging from six and a half years to two years and 10 months. The group is part of the Reichsbürger scene, a far-right group that rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state. Their plans were not directly related to a more complex plot surrounding a disgruntled prince currently being tried in Germany. The group had tried to buy and hoard weapons and explosives to carry out their plans, which included targeting the health minister, Karl Lauterbach. Lauterbach thanked the German police for their efforts in keeping him safe and stated that the state can defend itself against violent conspiracy theorists.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/world/europe/germany-court-health-minister-kidnap-sentencing.html