German media have reported that the anti-government group has grown by 56 percent to 15,600 members. Security services are concerned that propaganda about a 'Reichsbürger army' will inspire attacks.
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Germany's most idiosyncratic far-right movement has increased its membership by about 56 percent in a single year, local media reported on Friday. The Reichsbürger group is also trying to build an army and preparing for a "day of reckoning," according to news magazine Focus.
Reichsbürger is used as a label for a loosely connected group of Germans who believe that the 1871 borders of the German empire are still in effect and that all of the country's governments since (and including) the Nazis have been illegitimate, many also subscribe to anti-Semitic ideologies.
They believe that the current Federal Republic of Germany is a puppet government controlled by the Allied powers of World War II.
'Preparing for Day X'
Usually dismissed as a disparate association of ideological radicals, the Reichsbürger have increasingly been in the headlines after a series of violent incidents in the past two years, including the murder of a policeman in the Bavarian town of Georgensgmünd.
After putting in information requests to Germany's domestic security agencies, Focus reported that the number of Reichsbürger adherents had grown to 15,600 by January – up more than 50 percent from the same time last year.
The biggest number of supporters resides in Bavaria, which has about 3,500 Reichsbürger members.
"They have begun preparing themselves for Day X," Focus writes, referring to an imagined day of reckoning or uprising against the German government. They are also apparently trying to form an army.
While the organization's disjointed nature makes the threat of significant violence relatively low, security services are worried that the Reichsbürger's militia propaganda will inspire lone-wolf attacks and increase illegal weapons trafficking. More than 1,000 Reichsbürger members have one or more legal weapons licenses.
The Reichsbürger movement in Germany
They reject the legitimacy of Germany's government. Some are prepared to use violence. Who are the Reichsbürger? And what is Germany doing about them?
Image: picture-alliance/chromorange/C. Ohde
What do Reichsbürger believe?
"Reichsbürger" translates to "citizens of the Reich." The nebulous movement rejects the modern German state, and insists that the German Empire's 1937 or 1871 borders still exist and the modern country is an administrative construct still occupied by Allied powers. For Reichsbürger, the government, parliament, judiciary and security agencies are puppets installed and controlled by foreigners.
Image: picture-alliance/SULUPRESS/MV
The first 'Reichsbürger' Wolfgang Ebel
Wolfgang Ebel was the first to argue the German Reich's continued to exist. A resident of West Berlin, he worked for Berlin S-bahn local train service which the GDR operated under the label "Deutsche Reichsbahn." When he got sacked in 1980 he argued that he was actually a civil servant of the Reich and could not be sacked by a post-war institution. He lost all his court cases and turned radical.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Ebener
What do they do?
The Reichsbürger refuse to pay taxes or fines. They see their personal property, such as their houses, as independent entities outside the authority of the Federal Republic of Germany, and reject the German constitution and other legal texts, but also swamp German courts with lawsuits. They produce their own aspirational documents such as passports and driving licenses.
Image: picture-alliance/Bildagentur-online/Ohde
How much of a threat are they?
The Reichsbürger scene began to develop in the 1980s and is a disparate, leaderless movement that has grown to about 23,000 supporters, according to German intelligence officials. Of those, about 950 have been identified as far-right extremists and at least 1,000 have a license to own firearms. Many subscribe to antisemitic ideologies.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Weihrauch
Who are its members? One was Mr. Germany
According to German authorities, the average Reichsbürger is 50 years old, male, and is socially and financially disadvantaged. The movement's members are concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of Germany. Adrian Ursache, a former winner of the Mister Germany beauty pageant, is also a Reichsbürger and was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2019 for shooting and injuring a policeman.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Schmidt
Turning point
The case of Wolfgang P., who in October 2017 was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a police officer, is seen as a turning point for how German authorities deal with the extremist group. P., an alleged Reichsbürger member, shot at officers who were raiding his home to confiscate weapons. The case gained international attention and set off alarm bells over the escalation of violence.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Karmann
What are the authorities doing about it?
German authorities were accused of long underestimating the threat. In 2017 for the first time Germany’s domestic intelligence service documented extremist crimes perpetrated by individual Reichsbürger. Since then there have been several raids on Reichsbürger targets and subgroups have been banned. Police and military have also probed whether they have Reichsbürger in their own ranks.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Zinken
International parallels, conspiracy theories
Reichsbürger have been seen waving Russian flags, leading to allegations that they are funded by Russia with the aim to destabilize the German government. Germany's Reichsbürger are also compared to US groups such as "freemen-on-the-land," who believe that they are bound only by laws they consent to and can therefore declare themselves independent of the government and the rule of law.
Image: DW/D. Vachedin
Ringleader Heinrich XIII, Prince Reuss
The prince was the ringleader of "Reichsbürger" affiliates who planned a coup in 2022. He had lost several court cases to regain lost lands and properties, and then publicly reiterated the belief that the current democratic Federal Republic has no valid basis, peddled well-worn antisemitic tropes and suggested to reinstate the Kaiser, who had been removed against the wishes of the people.
