“Since the attack on the Capitol on January 6 2021 in Washington, we know very well that anti-democratic speech supports action,” said Konstantin von Notz, a German deputy environmental activist, in 2022.
That year, people from the Reichsbürger movement (citizens of the Reich), which does not recognize the Federal Republic of Germany or its constitution, has concretely prepared an attack on the Bundestag by armed groups.
A German prince as head of the group
Their plans were thwarted by a massive offensive on 7 December: around 3,000 police officers were mobilized throughout Germany and more than 130 searches were carried out. About twenty people were suspected of planning a coup, deliberately accepting the possibility of causing casualties.
Their leader, Heinrich XIII, Prince of Reuss, was expected to lead this new government. Aged 73, from a very old German noble family, he supported conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism within the movement.
Three separate trials began in the spring of 2024, including against the group’s leader, a German nobleman, Henry XIII known as Prince Reuss, and a former elite soldier.
Two chancellors in the crosshairs
This Tuesday, the Reichsbürger was once again in the headlines. Martin S., a German-Polish man, was arrested, the federal prosecutor’s office announced. He intends to attack former German chancellor Angela Merkel and her successor Olaf Sholz. Prosecutors did not specify whether he had weapons or explosives to carry out his threat.
This heterogeneous and conspiratorial movement is generally right-wing. It claims to belong to the Third Reich, the Weimar Republic, or the Empire that ended in 1918, with the French victory.
Influenced by the QAnon movement
There were among them eccentrics who were not considered dangerous by the authorities. Recently, some people have been influenced by the QAnon movement, a pro-Trump conspiracy movement.
In May, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government disbanded the “German Empire” organization, a collection of Reichsbürgers who lived outside the institutional framework and described as “dangerous extremists.”
