Germany has launched a major crackdown on the country's largest ‘Reich citizen’ group, ‘Kingdom of Germany,’ banning the far-right extremist organisation and conducting raids across multiple states.
Interior minister Alexander Dobrindt described the group as a "counter-state" operating within Germany, built on criminal financial structures and fuelled by antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Hundreds of security personnel were deployed early Tuesday to search properties associated with the group and the homes of its leading members.
The ‘Reich citizen’ movement, or ‘Reichsbürger,’ rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state, clinging to the belief that the historical German Reich persists. This denial extends to the country's democratic institutions, laws, and courts, with members often refusing to pay taxes, social security contributions, or fines.
The movement has also been described as neo-Nazi, holding similar ideas and having many members with links to Germany’s illegal neo-Nazi groups.
“The members of this association have created a ‘counter-state’ in our country and built up economic criminal structures,” Mr Dobrindt said, adding that the members of the group underpinned their supposed claim to power with antisemitic conspiracy narratives — a behavior that the country cannot tolerate.
“We will take decisive action against those who attack our free democratic basic order,” the minister added.
The so-called ‘Kingdom of Germany’ was proclaimed by its leader Peter Fitzek in the eastern town of Wittenberg in 2012 and says it has around 6,000 followers, the interior ministry said in a statement. It claims to be a “counter-state” that seceded from the German federal government.
The group's online platforms will be blocked and its assets will be confiscated to ensure that no further financial resources can be used for extremist purposes.
It's not the first time that Germany acts against the ‘Reichsbürger’ movement.
In 2023, German police officers searched the homes of about 20 people in connection with investigations into the far-right Reich Citizens scene, whose adherents had similarities to followers of the QAnon movement in the United States.
Last year, the alleged leaders of a suspected far-right plot to topple Germany’s government went on trial on Tuesday, opening proceedings in a case that shocked the country in late 2022.
