Federal prosecutors searched the homes of the two in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania yesterday.

The pair were seized after arousing suspicion by buying ammunition for weapons they had obtained legally and had been discussing “refugee and migration policy,” which they claimed would lead to the “collapse of public order,” via online chat groups.

Authorities said they saw “an opportunity to hold and kill representatives of the left-wing political spectrum.”

Die Linke MP Martina Renner slammed “agitation against the left” and has asked authorities to say how long they have been in possession of the kill-list and whether the individuals on it have been told.

Berlin politician Oliver Hoeffinghoff, a former Pirate Party activist who is now in Die Linke, said: “After nazi groups in the armed forces they now have criminals in the police.

“Surprised? No.”

An army lieutenant was arrested in the spring for terrorist activities, suspected of planning a false flag attack which would be blamed on Syrian refugees.

The Greens’ Monika Herrmann has called on Interior Minister Thomas de Maizieres to explain how he will deal with “right-wing forces in the police and the army.”

Stefan Huth, editor of the German socialist newspaper Junge Welt, told the Morning Star that compiling lists of leftwingers to attack had a long history on the far right and that federal investigators had to get involved because of suspected links between fascists and local police forces.

“It is not the first case,” he said, pointing to similar concerns over an investigation into racist attacks in Saxony last year.

Criminologist Tobias Singelnstein has voiced fears there is “a touch of the deep state” in the latest case and said a serious investigation into right-wing terror should not focus on “the nazi scene, but on the police, the lawyers, the politicians.”

Mr Huth warned that authorities were using a false equivalence between fascist and anti-fascist movements to clamp down on the left, with an independent website, linksunten.indymedia.org, having been banned on Friday — a ban “justified by lies.”