Until recently, Berlin judge Birgit Malsack-Winkemann was giving speeches in the German parliament. This week she was arrested in a raid as part of a group suspected of plotting to violently overthrow the German government.
Prosecutors have said the 58-year-old, a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, was to become justice minister in a new state headed by aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuss after the coup.
Her position in the German legal establishment and proximity to power have fanned concerns about how extremism may have been overlooked in the AfD and in society at large.