It was early Wednesday morning that the German police made several interventions in a nationwide crackdown on the far-right Reichsbürger movement.
The Reichsbürger movement consists of various far-right groups that do not recognize the Federal Republic of Germany. They instead swear allegiance to the previous German Reich, which was dissolved after the country’s defeat in World War II. The followers therefore oppose paying taxes, obeying the German constitution, and refuse to respect Germany’s current borders or authorities. The movement believes that Germany is owned by the allied occupation powers and controlled by companies in the USA.
Guilty of several acts of violence
– People from this movement have been involved in several acts of violence in the past. Among other things, a murder of a policeman and several attempted murders of policemen during interventions, says SVT’s European Correspondent Christoffer Wendick.
At least 25 people have been arrested, among them former elite soldiers but also the nobleman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss and the former Member of Parliament Birgit Malsack-Winkemann.
Those arrested are suspected of having made “concrete preparations to force their way into the German parliament with a small armed group,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Adelsman was planned to become the new leader
The German newspaper World writes that Heinrich XIII Reuss has a central role in the movement and, according to prosecutors, the group planned to make him Germany’s new leader. The coup d’état is also said to have been partly planned in the man’s hunting castle in southern Germany. In 2019, the nobleman allegedly shared anti-Semitic conspiracy theories at an internet forum in Zurich, as well as praised Germany as a non-sovereign state.
A spokesman for the Reuss family earlier this year described Heinrich XIII as a “confused old man” and said he was caught up in conspiracy theories. Heinrich XIII voluntarily left the family 14 years ago.
Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who sat in the Bundestag between 2017 and 2021 for the right-wing party AFD, was arrested this morning in a residential area in Berlin. She works as a judge and according to the morning newspaper Berlin Zeitung was the group’s opinion that she would become the new minister of justice after the coup d’état. Her role in the judiciary has previously been criticized, but as the court was unable to identify any extreme right-wing attitudes, she has been allowed to remain in her post.