Germany is one of the world’s most successful liberal democracies. It is an unlikely place for a coup. Yet attempts to seize power – such as the far-right plot exposed by the country’s security services, that resulted in the arrest of 25 people this week – are more common in Europe than we might like to admit.
Those held in custody in Germany are accused of plotting a putsch to overthrow the German government and replace it with a hereditary monarchy headed by an obscure prince. Three thousand police officers were involved in rounding up the suspects in this plot. Usually when such a swoop is mounted in Germany – and they are more frequent than we might like to suppose – the targets are Hitler-worshipping neo-Nazis, often with worrying links to the armed forces or police. So the news that the current suspects belong to an ultra-conservative movement called ‘Reich Citizens’ bent on returning lands lost to the Fatherland after World War Two and re-drawing Germany’s post-war frontiers, is a change to the usual pattern.
What is most extraordinary and disturbing, however, is not the Ruritanian nature of this particular plot – but the fact Germany is far from alone in Europe in facing such threats.
Take France, where military intervention in politics is not unknown. Today’s Fifth Republic was founded by General De Gaulle in 1958 when he was summoned to power by despairing politicians to end the war in Algeria. When De Gaulle failed to keep Algeria French, he only just survived a coup launched by a quartet of disgruntled Generals in 1961. An (unsuccessful) assassination attempt was also mounted against De Gaulle the following year.
Germany is far from alone in Europe in facing such threats
In more recent times, the threat of a military takeover in France has also loomed large. In April last year, no fewer than 25 retired French generals signed a letter to a right-wing magazine suggesting a coup d’etat might be necessary to stop ‘civil war’ in France.
Spain and Portugal were both ruled by right-wing dictatorships dating from the 1930s into the 1970s. Portugal’s ruling rightist regime was overthrown by a leftist military coup in 1974, and Spain’s durable military dictator General Franco died the following year.
Franco’s supporters attempted to oust the democracy that followed the old General when they briefly seized control of Spain’s Parliament, the Cortes, in 1981 in a military coup that was only thwarted by the personal intervention of the (since disgraced) King Juan Carlos. More recently, Spain’s armed forces have issued dark warnings that they would intervene to keep Spain together if the Catalan provinces attempted to break away and declare independence.
Greece was also ruled into the 1970s by a military junta – the Colonels – who seized power in 1967, overthrowing King Constantine that December when he tried to oust them with a botched coup of his own.
Italy’s recently elected prime minister Giorgia Meloni heads a party, the Brothers of Italy, which traces its roots back to Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Italy was wracked by a near civil war when terrorists of the far left and extreme right fought with bombings, shootings, kidnaps and murders – including that of Aldo Moro, a former prime minister. Its fragile democracy was often menaced by the threat of a neo-fascist coup.
What this unhappy litany underlines is the yawning gap between the political cultures of many countries in continental Europe and Britain, which has seen no such threats in recent times. This country has, thankfully, experienced a history of evolving Parliamentary democracy unbroken since the downfall of our only unhappy experience of military dictatorship – the rule of Oliver Cromwell and his generals in the 1650s.
Why is this? The answer is simple. Any suggestion of a putsch or coup would be hard to imagine in Britain, where our armed forces swear an oath to the King and to him alone. Having such a figurehead, who sits outside of politics, makes it difficult for would-be coup plotters to find a suitable leader. For retired colonels in Tunbridge Wells to write to the Times threatening a coup is as unlikely as for officers of the Met’s anti-terror squad to actually plot one.
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