A far-right terrorist group accused of plotting to overthrow the German government was influenced by American QAnon conspiracies, prosecutors say

• German police raided suspected members and supporters of a far-right terrorist group on Wednesday.
• Twenty-five people were accused of plotting a violent attack against the German government, reports say.

Suspected members and supporters of a German far-right terrorist group that prosecutors accused of plotting to overthrow the government were influenced by the baseless American QAnon conspiracy theory.

Police arrested 25 people connected to the Reichsbürger movement — an right-wing extremist group founded before November 2021 — in sweeping raids across the country on Wednesday, CNN reported, citing a statement from the German federal prosecutor's office.

"The members of the group follow a conglomerate of conspiracy myths consisting of narratives of the so-called Reichsbürger as well as QAnon ideology," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement, according to a CNN translation.

It added that "the accused are united by a deep rejection of state institutions and the free democratic basic order of the Federal Republic of Germany, which over time has led to their decision to participate in their violent elimination and to engage in concrete preparatory actions for this purpose."

"It's suspected that an armed attack was planned against constitutional bodies," Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted, according to a Washington Post translation.

According to the report, another 27 people were targeted in the raids as possible supporters of the group, though they weren't arrested.

America's QAnon conspiracy theory movement has taken root in Germany for years; it's where most of the ideology's European followers are located.

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-lockdown protesters in Germany waved flags sporting the group's "Q" symbol. Western officials, meanwhile, have said they're concerned Germany could become a host for the QAnon movement.

Aside from just QAnon, Germany has struggled to combat a rise in far-right extremism in recent years, including a plot by a German soldier to attack prominent politicians and a Jewish human rights activist, according to France24.

Another example of this is the growing influence of the country's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which critics say features Nazi and neo-Nazi sympathizers.

Last year, Germany's domestic spy agency put the AfD party under surveillance for its links to extremism.