Dresden: Eight young men accused of being part of a German extremist group seeking to establish an independent state based on Nazi ideology, went on trial in the eastern city of Dresden on Friday. Prosecutors believe they are part of the militant Saxon Separatists, a group formed in 2020 whose roughly 20 members advocated racist, anti-Semitic, and apocalyptic views.
According to Ghana News Agency, the group's members were convinced that the German state was close to collapse, an event they planned to exploit to seize large parts of the eastern region of Saxony by force to establish an independent state governed by the ideology of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, as stated in the indictment. Stephan Stolzh¤user, a representative of the Attorney General's Office, revealed after the trial that the defendants had allegedly agreed to commit acts of violence to achieve this goal, including plans to eliminate representatives of the current state order and expel minorities they deemed undesirable from the country.
The suspects, aged 22 to 26, were arrested during raids in Saxony and Poland in November 2024. They have been charged in the Dresden Higher Regional Court with involvement in a terrorist organization, preparation of a highly treasonous act among other offenses. The court has scheduled 67 trial dates, with proceedings held amid high security precautions.
The defendants have assembled a massive defense team, with 19 attorneys taking their seats in court alongside them. One suspect is being represented by five lawyers, one of whom, Dubravko Mandic, rejected the charges against his client in a press release, describing the proceedings as 'disproportionate' and denying that the Saxon Separatists ever existed.
One of the defendants, a 26-year-old local politician from the Saxon town of Grimma, was arrested while holding a long gun. Before the indictment could be read, the defense filed a motion to exclude the public from the proceedings, citing the defendants' age at the time of the alleged offenses, but this request was rejected by Judge Simone Herberger.
Three members of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which narrowly missed first place in Saxony's regional elections in 2024 and is the largest opposition party at the national level, are also believed to have been part of the Saxon Separatists. Nevertheless, the regional AfD branch swiftly rejected the accusations, and an AfD lawmaker at Saxony's state parliament was among the spectators at the trial's commencement.