Prosecutors said earlier Thursday they had arrested four people suspected of plotting to kidnap the minister and destroy electrical installations to cause a nationwide blackout.
“They are a small minority in our society but they are very dangerous,” Lauterbach told a news conference.
The suspects were affiliated with groups protesting COVID-19 restrictions, and the far-right “Reichsbuerger” movement, which denies the existence of the modern German state, the prosecutor’s office in the western city of Koblenz in a press release.
“It shows that the COVID protests have not only become radicalized but are about much more than COVID,” Lauterbach said.
The plot to kidnap him is the latest in a series of incidents that have highlighted the anger of some Germans over restrictions on unvaccinated people and proposals to make vaccination compulsory for the general public.
In December, police foiled a plot by anti-vaccination activists to assassinate the prime minister of Saxony in eastern Germany.
Germany’s vaccination campaign is faltering with around 76.6% of the population having received at least one dose – less than in other Western European countries such as Italy or Spain, where the figures are well over 80%.
Last week, Germany’s lower house of parliament rejected mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for people over 60, another setback for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has already scrapped vaccination plans. compulsory for all adults, for lack of a parliamentary majority.
The suspects behind the latest plot were communicating in a chat group called Vereinte Patrioten, the United Patriots in German, and “intended to cause conditions approaching civil war and ultimately to overthrow the democratic system in Germany.” “said the prosecutor’s office.
Authorities raided 20 properties in several German states on Wednesday, confiscating weapons including rifles, ammunition and a Kalashnikov assault rifle, cash in euros and foreign currencies as well as gold bars and coins. silver coins.
They also found fake vaccination certificates and fake COVID tests, the office said.
The office has asked a judge to issue arrest warrants for the four detained suspects, all of whom are of German nationality. A fifth suspect is on the run.