German coup plot suspect Heinrich XIII's family was unimpressed with his princely ambitions

Hunting lodge of Prince Heinrich XIII
(Image credit: Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)

Germany last week arrested a minor member of the country's abolished nobility plus two dozen others accused of plotting to overthrow the German government, execute the chancellor, and replace the republic with an authoritarian state modeled on pre-1918 Germany. The minor noble tapped to lead this new reich was a wealthy former real estate broker who calls himself Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss. The plot was hatched, and the weapons were stored, in the basement of Heinrich XIII's ancestral hunting lodge in the scenic spa town of Bad Lobenstein in eastern Thuringia state, police say.

The House of Reuss once ruled Thuringia, "the state where the Nazis first won power locally more than 90 years ago," The New York Times reports. Heinrich XIII raised some of the money for the coup plot from other German-speaking nobility in Austria and Switzerland. But his antisemitic screeds and slide into the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) conspiracy theory — which holds that Germany isn't a sovereign state but a corporation created by Allied occupiers after World War II — alienated him from other members of his own family, the Times reports.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.