Germany has woken up to a problem of far-right extremism in its elite special forces. But the threat of neo-Nazi infiltration of state institutions is much broader.
The plan sounded frighteningly concrete. The group would round up political enemies and those defending migrants and refugees, put them on trucks and drive them to a secret location.
Then they would kill them.
One member had already bought 30 body bags. More body bags were on an order list, investigators say, along with quicklime, used to decompose organic material.
Two others were police officers, including Marko Gross, a police sniper and former parachutist who acted as their unofficial leader.
The group grew out of a nationwide chat network for soldiers and others with far-right sympathies set up by a member of Germany’s elite special forces, the KSK.
They called themselves Nordkreuz, or Northern Cross.
Neo-Nazi groups and other extremists call it Day X — a mythical moment when Germany’s social order collapses, requiring committed far-right extremists, in their telling, to save themselves and rescue the nation.