Police in Germany have arrested eight suspected members of a far-right terror cell alleged to have been plotting the armed takeover of eastern regions to establish a Nazi-inspired regime that would carry out “ethnic cleansing”, federal prosecutors said. Amid a crackdown on neo-Nazi militants, the German nationals calling themselves Sächsische Separatisten (Saxonian Separatists) were taken into custody on Tuesday in pre-dawn raids on 20 premises in eastern Germany and the Polish border city of Zgorzelec, with another seven suspects in investigators’ sights. Spiegel magazine reported that three of the suspects were politicians who had held local office for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party. One of them, identified only as Kurt H., was shot in the jaw by police during the raid in the town of Grimma after he reached for a rifle, Spiegel said, citing security sources. Police responded by firing “warning shots”. The report said he had been operated on and was out of danger. Locations in Austria, not directly linked to any of the suspects, were also searched, including in the capital, Vienna. The federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the Saxonian Separatists, numbering 15 to 20 people, had been active since at least November 2020, with an ideology “characterised by racist, antisemitic and partially apocalyptic ideas”. The group, mainly young men, some of them adolescents, allegedly rejects Germany’s liberal democratic order, which it believes is nearing collapse and will implode on an unspecified “Day X”. “On that occasion, the group intends to gain control over certain areas in Saxony and potentially in other east German states – namely by force of arms – to establish governmental and societal structures inspired by national socialism,” the prosecutor’s office said. “If necessary, unwanted groups of people are supposed to be removed from the area by means of ethnic cleansing.” It said the alleged plotters had been preparing for violent struggle with paramilitary training “in combat gear”, practising “urban warfare, firearms handling … as well as patrolling”. Police said the group had procured camouflage fatigues, combat helmets, gas masks and bulletproof vests but did not indicate they had found any weapons. More than 450 police and special forces were deployed as part of the investigation. The suspects in custody were to appear on Tuesday and Wednesday before a federal judge who will rule on whether they should remain in pre-trial detention. The interior minister, Nancy Faeser, who has repeatedly called rightwing extremists the biggest threat to domestic security, hailed the arrests as “an important success” in the fight against the militant far right. The justice minister, Marco Buschmann, said in a statement that the police action was a reminder that Germany’s constitutional system and free and democratic order “are under threat from many sides”. “We must do everything we can to defend our liberal democracy against its enemies,” he added. German authorities have repeatedly swooped on far-right groups allegedly seeking to overthrow the government. In 2022, police arrested a sprawling group of far-right conspiracists allegedly linked to the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) movement and believed to have planned to violently topple the country’s parliament, forcibly eliminate the existing state order and replace it with their own regime. Police could not immediately be reached for comment.