Real Madrid defender, David Alaba’s father-in-law was reportedly among the 25 people arrested in sweeping raids by German police on Wednesday December 9, which foiled an alleged plot to execute the Chancellor.
Frank Heppner, 62, who is a celebrity chef is believed to have been arrested in the glitzy Austrian ski resort of Kitzbühel where he owns and operates a restaurant.
According to German outlet Bild, investigators believe the celebrity chef was a high-ranking member of the military wing of the Reichsbürger group – a band of plotters who want to overthrow the modern German democratic state and install a member of a German royal family as the new leader.
Germany’s attorney general said the Reichsbürger’s militarised unit was responsible for ‘the recruitment of new members, the procurement of weapons, establishing an IT and comms structure, and drawing up plans for future accommodation and catering’.
Austria’s Die Presse wrote that Heppner would ‘take over the canteens of the new German Reich’ and supply their troops.
The celebrity chef’s daughter, Shalimar Heppner, shares a son with Real Madrid’s Alaba.
In Wednesday’s raids, German police are said to have uncovered a list containing the names of 18 enemy politicians, that the ‘Citizens of the Reich’ (Reichsbürger) group allegedly wanted to execute or deport.
According to the New York Times, citing an anonymous source close to the investigation, Chancellor Scholz was on the list. The group planned to execute him.
The sources said plotters intended to disable the electricity network to aid in their attack on the German government, and had already purchased satellite phones that they would use to communicate off the grid.
The group then planned to storm the Capitol building in Berlin, arrest lawmakers, and execute the German Chancellor, according to the newspaper’s sources.