Police special operations commandos in the eastern German region of Saxony have arrested four men and a woman suspected of planning to assassinate the state’s prime minister Michael Kretschmer – who has pushed for mandatory vaccinations and hard lockdowns to slow a virulent surge in Covid-19 infections in his state.

       A total of 140 heavily armed police officers raided five locations in Dresden and the nearby town of Heidenau at dawn, arresting the five suspects aged between 32 and 64, after their plans to try to kill Kretschmer were discussed openly on the messaging service Telegram that has become popular among opponents of vaccinations and lockdowns.

       There has been an alarming increase in the scope and readiness to turn to violence by demonstrators across Germany opposed to the governments’ increasingly robust Covid-19 vaccination efforts.

       “We must use all legal means to fight back against this,” said Kretschmer, the conservative state prime minister who has become a target of hatred for large groups of anti-vaccination protestors in the region that has long been a hotbed of resistance to inoculations despite having the highest Covid-19 infection rates in the country.

       “Anyone holding public office should not have to be afraid to express their views freely and do their jobs.”

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       Chancellor Olaf Scholz also condemned the radical fringes of society trying to thwart efforts to fight the pandemic with vaccinations and other measures.

       “We won’t put up with a tiny minority of uninhibited extremists trying to impose their will on our entire society,” Scholz said in a speech in parliament.

       “We’ll use all the means of a democracy that are available to stand up to this tiny minority carrying torches and who try to intimidate people with violence and death threats.”

       Earlier this month police detained a dozen protestors in Saxony for staging a torchlight march in front of the home of a minister in Kretschmer’s government, Health Minister Petra K？pping in Grimma. She has also spoken out forcefully for mandatory vaccinations. It was an ominous reminder of the country’s Nazi past and widely condemned.

       “That was an attack against democracy,” said Saxony’s Interior Minister Roland W？ller.

       Police said in a statement that the five suspects were arrested on “suspicion they were preparing a serious act of violence that threatens the state”.

       They added special forces were used to raid the five locations due to fears the suspects might be armed: "Statements made by individual members of the Telegram group suggested that the suspects might be in possession of weapons and crossbows."

       The infection rate per 100,000 residents in Saxony is at about 824 more twice as high as the national average at the moment and the percentage of those fully vaccinated is 59 per cent, or about 10 percentage points below the average for the rest of the country.

       There have been dozens of marches in towns and cities across Saxony to protest the growing pressure on Germans to get vaccinated if they want to take part in public events, enter cafes, restaurants, public buildings or public transportation.

       There were other disturbing acts of protest aimed at several national political leaders for the tightened Coronavirus restrictions against the large segment of about 30 per cent of adult Germans who remain unvaccinated despite ample supplies of vaccines.

       Michael Kretschmer, Prime Minister of Saxony, wearing a mask and face shield, visits the Covid standard ward at Leipzig University Hospital

       (AP)

       More than a dozen politicians, journalists and local authorities across Germany received packages of raw steak wrapped in aluminum foil from a group that threatened to launch “bloody resistance”, according to German media reports.

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       Included in the packages was a reference to the Nazi gas used in concentration camps to murder Jews called Zyklon B in a threatening message that read: “The meat is contaminated with radiating Covid-19 viruses and with Zyklon B... Resistance to vaccination and measures will be bloody and unsavory.”

       Police said that meat parcels were not contaminated.