From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily.

Today, the story behind a highly organized plot to overthrow Germany's government.

My colleague, Berlin bureau chief, Cantran Benhold, on what it reveals about the depth of right-wing extremism inside the country.

It's Tuesday, December 13th.

The Daily is the first time the government has ever seen a police officer in Germany.

Capt. Wonkus threw exactly what happened last week in Germany.

So, Michael, we had what was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, counter-terrorist operation that post-Wermany's ever seen.

In early morning raids across Germany, thousands of police officers at the moment were on the streets.

There was like 3,000 police officers and special forces spanning out across the country.

And by the end of the day, they had raided 150 homes, arrested 25 people, and put over 50 under investigation for basically plotting the overthrow of the German government.

Well, the armed conspirators planning to take over government ministries and storm the parliament.

So, this is sort of crazy news, but it's obvious that the authorities are taking it very seriously.

And that has to do with the composition of this group.

There was a member of the special forces at Germany's Kaes Ka, a lead commando unit who was going to be...

Two thirds of the people who were arrested were described as having very serious links to the military.

But there was also something that called itself the political wing.

And what's worrisome there is that there was, for example, a former lawmaker from this far-right party called the Alternative for Germany, the AFD.

So this woman was in parliament until last fall, and therefore still had access to the parliament building, which made this all very serious.

So she conceivably could have given access to the group.

If you look at the things that police uncovered in these various homes, it is a very worrisome collection of things.

They had weapons from guns to explosives, to ammunition, but also military equipment like night vision goggles or bulletproof vests.

All this kind of stuff that you can imagine, a kind of military coup wanting to use.

...