It is the biggest blow to date against the scene of the so-called Reich citizens: early Wednesday morning, special units from the federal and state governments searched around 100 objects in several federal states, which are attributed to a group of Reich citizens classified as partially violent. Arrest warrants were issued against more than 20 people.
According to information from WELT, the action was initiated and coordinated by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Criminal Police Office. Officers from the special unit of the Federal Police, the GSG 9, and special task forces from the state police were also deployed.
The authorities accuse the Reichsbürger group of planning a violent “systemic upheaval”. Some group members were in possession of weapons, it said in security circles. The aim was to “clear away” the existing government. So far, there has been no official information about the measures.
The properties searched also included the living quarters of Birgt Malsack-Winkemann, a former AfD member of the Bundestag. Reporters from WELT observed how special forces arrived around 6 a.m. in front of the terraced house in the Wannsee residential area of Berlin and broke through the front door with a ram. The officials also took action against a member of an old noble family and former members of the Bundeswehr’s “Special Forces Command”.
According to security circles, one focus of the raids is Baden-Württemberg. There alone, information from WELT and 30 objects were searched. The authorities took action against people who are said to have publicly defamed and threatened doctors in the course of the corona pandemic. The doctors affected by the threats carried out vaccinations in their practices and in some cases publicly spoke out in favor of them.
In the case of a pediatrician, for example, the suspects are said to have stuck stickers with his picture on walls, cars and mailboxes. The associated inscription could be translated as “next syringe” or “next shot”. Other doctors and politicians also received similar threats. The suspects are said to have pursued plans to make an example of well-known vaccinators, according to security circles.
The most prominent figure attributed to the group is a former parliamentarian: Birgit Malsack-Winkemann is a member of the AfD and was a member of the Bundestag for her party from 2017 to 2021. Observers attributed them to the extremist “wing” of the party.
After leaving the Bundestag, Malsack-Winkemann returned to the Berlin Regional Court as a judge. In June of this year, the Berlin Senator for Justice, Lena Kreck (left), applied for the 58-year-old to be placed on temporary retirement because of doubts about her loyalty to the constitution. However, the administrative court rejected the application. Information about the role Malsack-Winkemann played in the Reichsbürger group has not yet leaked from the authorities.
Another presumed member of the Reichsbürger group can also be considered a public figure: Prince Heinrich XIII. Reuss comes from an old noble family. The House of Reuss ruled over areas in what is now the state of Thuringia until the November Revolution of 1918. The remaining branch of the family has castles in, among other places, Lower Austria, near Leipzig and near Saalfeld in Thuringia.
Prince Henry XIII owns a property in Saaldorf an der Saale: the small neo-Gothic hunting lodge Waidmannsheil. According to the findings of the security authorities, the citizens of the Reich used the castle for networking meetings – and the plans for the hoped-for overthrow.
Away from the Reichsbürger meetings, the prince resided in Frankfurt am Main, in the posh Westend, according to information from WELT. The authorities also struck here during the raid.
Prince Henry XIII Reuss, appeared even before today’s access by the security authorities through Reich citizen propaganda. In 2019, in a speech at a “Worldwebforum” supposedly held in Zurich, he raved about the fact that the Federal Republic of Germany was not a sovereign state. In the Principality of Reuss, people had “lived a happy life” because the administrative structures were “manageable and clear”. . “If something didn’t go well, you went to the prince,” said Reuss.
Reuss obviously doesn’t know what to do with democracy. The separation of powers is “an illusion”. Germany is a “tributary vassal state”. At the “Worldwebforum” Reuss also spread barely concealed anti-Semitic conspiracy myths. Behind upheavals like the French Revolution were “representatives of the Rothschild dynasty”. The USA financed the Hitler regime. Wars were initiated “to advance the spread of the Jewish population”.
In July of this year, Prince Heinrich XIV, who appears as spokesman for the House of Reuss, described the offspring of the family who had gone astray as a “confused old man” who “now gets caught up in conspiracy theory misconceptions”. Henry XIII left the family 14 years ago of my own volition.
In the family, Prince Heinrich, the XIII Reuss, is considered “persona non grata” in view of his wild conspiracy stories. On the other hand, in the Reichsbürger scene, he gained a reputation as a courageous enlightener. His videos are shared in the relevant channels of the messenger service Telegram. They also find approval in channels of the “lateral thinker” scene.
According to the findings of the security authorities, Reuss and his comrades-in-arms may have been striving to establish a “Principality of Reuss” in his ideas as a citizen of the Reich. The group is said to have already divided up the departments. The AfD politician Malsack-Winkemann should have been responsible for the judiciary in the “Principality of Reuss”. It has not yet become known who should have been responsible for the other areas. In the environment of the security authorities, it was said that the group had chosen people “with influential positions in social or financial areas”. The aim of the group was to “clear away” the current government.
The security authorities tracked down the Reich citizens through a procedure by the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office, the investigations against Prince Heinrich XIII. Reuss initiated. It is not yet known what this process was about.
The Reich citizen scene is considered to be extremely heterogeneous. Their unifying element is the conviction that Germany is not a sovereign state. Many Reich citizens regard the Federal Republic as a “company” controlled by foreign powers. Reich citizens regard the German legal system as illegitimate.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been officially observing the Reichsbürger scene since 2016. The agency counts around 21,000 followers in the scene. A little more than a thousand of them are also considered right-wing extremists. Many Reich citizens are considered to have an affinity for weapons. October 19, 2016 is considered the turning point in the assessment of the Reichsbürger scene. At that time, a supporter of the scene shot dead a SEK officer in Georgensmünd, Bavaria. Officers went to the scene to confiscate the man’s guns.
