Maximilian Ruf, co-director of the research department at Violence Prevention Network and research fellow at modus|zad
In a widely publicised operation on 7 December, 25 persons were arrested in Germany, Italy, and Austria, marking one of the biggest counter-terrorism raids in German history.[1] Of all arrestees, 22 are suspected of being members of a terrorist organization, with the remaining three being accused as supporters. An additional 27 persons were not arrested but stand accused of related crimes. The overarching aim of the group ‘Patriotic Union’ (German: Patriotische Union), which had been operational since at least November 2021, was to overthrow the current state and to replace it with a different system.[2] To do so, they had already formed a shadow cabinet, dubbed a ‘council’, including a head of state, a justice minister, and a foreign minister.[3] As a second pillar, they had formed a military wing, including former army personnel, that was tasked with the operational side of a supposed coup, including the formation of 286 armed ‘homeland defence units’ (German: Heimatschutzkompanien). According to their vision, the new preliminary government would then have been tasked to negotiate a new German state order with the allied victors of World War 2, in particular with Russia.[4] To reach their aims, the group was prepared to engage in serious violence at different levels and had allegedly prepared lists for “cleansings”, i.e. murders, at the local level, targeting, for example, mayors.[5]
The raid and subsequent international media attention put a limelight on a complex and obscure phenomenon: the so-called Reichsbürger or “Reich-citizens” in the Federal Republic of Germany. Even though experts have been monitoring the phenomenon and warning of the real threat it poses to German society for quite some time, it was only relatively recently that German politics and most security authorities started paying attention more closely. To understand the phenomenon and its societal and security implications in Germany, it is necessary to first take a step back and briefly look at its history and the wider scene.
The Reich and its Pseudo-citizens’ Ideological Core
To start with, it is necessary to note that the term Reichsbürger itself is mostly an external ascription and not necessarily a self-description of the people who are part of this wider spectrum of beliefs. While many of them do in fact see themselves as citizens of an imagined Reich, this specific terminology is commonly used by journalists, politicians, activists, and security authorities to label this diffuse scene of people and groups. But why this reference to the Reich at all?
The term ‘Reich’ is commonly used even in English to refer to the German nation state between 1871 and 1945, spanning the Empire from 1871-1918, the Weimar Republic (1918-33), and the ensuing Third Reich—Nazi Germany—until its final defeat in 1945. The complete and unconditional German surrender, followed by the formation of two German states in 1949, instead of one clear and obvious successor state, created a complex legal situation in which some administrative remnants of the former Reich continued to exist.[6] This legal limbo partially feeds into to current Reichsbürger’s reasoning, according to which a form of the Reich persists as the one true statehood for the German nation and its people. Today, Reichsbürger and other sovereignists in Germany typically employ a broad mix of real legal texts, pseudo-legality, conspiracy beliefs, and delusional tendencies to proclaim that the Federal Republic of Germany is not a true nation state and as such holds no actual legal authority. This lack of sovereign statehood for the German people is not assessed to be a simple mistake or coincidence, but rather a deliberate ploy by, for example, the Western allied forces, and—more often than not and in unfortunately common antisemitic tradition—“the Jews”.
One very common notion across the wider phenomenon is the belief that the Federal Republic of Germany (German abbreviation: BRD) is not in fact a state but rather a commercial enterprise, the ‘BRD GmbH’. Supposed evidence for this is the title of the German government-issued identification card ‘Personalausweis’. This is interpreted as “personnel identification”, personnel here meaning employee, rather than its actual meaning “personal identification”. Another common thread of pseudo-evidence is the existence of a “Deutschland GmbH” registered with the commercial register in Frankfurt, which supposedly demonstrates that Germany is merely a company. In reality, this organisation is a company that is fully owned by the German Ministry of Finance and used to conduct financial business for the German government—the company’s full name shows that more clearly: Bunderepublik Deutschland Finanzagentur GmbH—which loosely translates to: “Federal Republic of Germany Financial Agency Ltd”.[7]
Organisation, Movement, Scene?
Reporting by security authorities and the media often refers to Reichsbürger as a “movement”. While the phenomenon does possess some characteristics of a movement, it may be better described as a “scene”, made up of a very loose network of individuals and predominantly small groups that, up to the present moment, have not managed to consolidate into a more unified and overarching organisational structure. The people within this scene are held together only by the lowest common denominator—the belief that the current Federal Republic of Germany is illegitimate, and that some form of German Reich still exists. Beyond this basic notion, very little exists in terms of ideological coherence. As a result, individual groups and members do not even agree on the question of which type of Reich still exists—that of 1871, that of 1919, or rather that within the borders of 1937? To complicate matters further, the German federal domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV (the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) defines a second category of sovereignists, so-called self-administrators.[8] People ascribed to this category do not necessarily believe in the continued existence of a Reich, but are again united by the basic belief that the current German state is illegitimate, in turn allowing them to leave this false entity and its governing system and to govern or administer themselves henceforth. This has led to a number of them declaring their own property as a sovereign governing district over which they rule themselves—and over which the BRD and its agents supposedly wield no power.
As mentioned previously, the belief and organisational system of Reichsbürger and self-administrators (from now on jointly referred to as sovereignists) in Germany is highly individualised. In essence, every person believing in the core concept (BRD illegitimacy, plus an optional belief in the continued existence of a Reich entity) can pick and mix accompanying beliefs and conspiracy narratives. This high level of individualisation may be one of the factors that contributes to the lack of significant overarching organisational structures. It has also led some analysts to theorizing that aspects of this particular type of sovereignism may be a welcome vehicle for self-aggrandizement by persons with a high sense of self-importance, maybe even narcissistic tendencies or disorders.[9] The fact that those sovereignists who did manage to form actual organisational structures are often centred around strong individual leading figures in an almost cult-like fashion (such as the fantasy state of “Königreich Deutschland” led by Peter Fitzek), complicates the generalisation of such assessments, but does not necessarily contradict the underlying notion.
Public and Security Assessments of the Phenomenon
Despite recent events and the ensuing international attention, the subject of sovereignism in Germany remains one of the more underappreciated topics of research and serious political and security service debate. It was only in 2016—a few months after a police officer was murdered by a sovereignist during an attempt to confiscate his weapons—that the BfV officially designated the wider topic and landscape as an ‘observation case’.[10] In its most recent report for 2021, the agency concluded there are around 21,000 persons involved in the phenomenon (in 2020 there were 20,000).[11] In the wake of the raid and arrests earlier this month, this number was updated to 23,000 by the German Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser.[12] It is the state authority’s estimation that approximately 10% of this total are oriented towards violence,[13] with “more than five percent” simultaneously forming part of the Right-wing extremist spectrum.[14]
These official numbers show a rapid rise of the number of individuals who are part of this scene, by more than 3,000 persons within three years. However, experts on the phenomenon have long been warning that the official numbers may not be able to adequately grasp the actual size of the scene and its sympathizers. For example, political scientist Jan Rathje showed that by June of 2021 more than 60,000 accounts subscribed to channels that can be attributed to the phenomenon on Telegram alone.[15]
But even prior to 2016, sovereignist actors in Germany have posed a very real threat to minorities, as well as to representatives of a supposedly illegitimate state system, such as local officials and politicians, as well as security forces like police officers.[16] While the practical nuisances and danger posed by members of this scene have been well known to the targets of their physical and communicative violence and officials on the ground, many state and federal level authorities did not seem to credit this issue with too much practical attention. Even after 2016, sovereignist actors could continue to voice their threats, engage in intimidation efforts, and threaten violence with relative impunity.[17] Especially during the coronavirus pandemic, threats to “execute” politicians and activists via fake death sentences became commonplace in many social media groups and channels, often pronounced by actors who had taken up sovereignist ideologies and declared themselves legitimate representatives of true state power in Germany.[18]
What Next?
Aside from an operational focus on the revocation of legal weapons ownership licenses and subsequent weapons confiscations,[19] the Reichsbürger topic was characterized by years of relative negligence by relevant authorities and decision-makers on the one side, and by a popular refusal to take it seriously on the other side. Large parts of German society looked upon this issue with raised eyebrows—and through the lenses of satirical TV shows that made fun of the scene and its funny-looking members and their tendency to wear fantasy uniforms and give themselves fake titles. Similarly, the group that was just uncovered lacks the “look and feel” that is commonly associated with extremism and severe violence; the notion that “normal looking” people, who may be of middle or senior age, were prepared to murder and incite large-scale violence remains hard to grasp to many.
There is some hope that the raid in early December 2022 may herald the start of a new, more serious era regarding German society’s relationship with the topic of Reichsbürger, other sovereignists, and intersecting issues such as the ‘Anastasia movement’. In order for this to come true, however, a number of issues need to be considered without which the welcome attention to the topic may prove to be futile.
First, the label Reichsbürger should be applied carefully, and this is true regarding the group that was just uncovered. It suffers from a lack of research and definitional strength and should not simply be used because it attracts attention. Based on the currently available information, ideological fragments that influenced the group’s members span Reichsbürger ideas, QAnon, and varied additional esoteric and conspiratorial beliefs.[20] The group also seems to have formed as a merger of different scenes, including, among others, Reichsbürger and Querdenker scenes (the German Querdenker emerged as the leading protest movement during the coronavirus-pandemic and predominantly consists of pandemic sceptics and deniers, anti-vaxxers, and anti-lockdown protesters).[21] The answer to the question of which exact (combination) of ideas drove their radicalisation to planned violence and how remains to be uncovered throughout the coming trials and further research.
Additionally, more serious engagement with those people who have been affected by sovereignist agitation and violence for years, if not decades, is necessary: Local administrations, mayors and politicians, local police, and many others hold a vast amount of practical knowledge. They are often very aware of local structures and may already have developed (preliminary) methods of dealing with sovereignists based on simple necessity. Their expertise needs to be valued and taken into account when planning further action.
While a tightening of disciplinary measures against members of the police or the armed forces who adhere to extremist ideas is necessary, repression should not be the only path. It needs to be accompanied by awareness-raising and sensitisation measures among their leadership. Aims should include the creation of knowledge about the issue and about the underlying mechanisms that may make members of the police and armed forces more susceptible to authoritarian ideologies than other parts of society. The fact that both former and active-duty members of police and Bundeswehr (Germany’s armed forces) were part of the uncovered plot should ring loud alarm bells. This is further aggravated by the fact that the group apparently tried to recruit more active members of these forces. While most seem to have declined, the fact that they also seem to have stayed silent about being approached is alarming. In general, police and security services need to revisit their current threat assessment in light of recent events.
Existing prevention programmes against extremism should be supported in developing measures and approaches to work on this topic. Practitioners in Germany and beyond have long noted an increasing diversification of target groups, which remain largely outside the scope of existing approaches and do not fit previous, clear-cut designations such as “Right-wing extremist” or “Islamist extremist”. Most funding streams and programmes, however, still rely on such a simplified binary.
Lastly, it is striking that there is a significant lack of dedicated empirical research on the topic. Journalists and activists have done a lot of work to map out the scene in recent years, but in-depth empirical studies looking at the phenomenon and its actors remain scarce. In order to support prevention practice, as well as security authorities, and the overarching societal understanding of this phenomenon and its potential implications for German democracy, more research is urgently needed. Preliminary research points to differences when compared to other extremist scenes, e.g. regarding age, gender, and group structures and dynamics. These should be explored further, as well as the potentially mobilising momentum that may have arisen via the merger of parts of Reichsbürger and Querdenker scenes. Ideally, new research should include comparative studies with other countries that have sovereignist scenes and movements, to gain a more complex understanding of the underlying core of sovereignism beyond specific historical and local contextualisation.
European Eye on Radicalization aims to publish a diversity of perspectives and as such does not endorse the opinions expressed by contributors. The views expressed in this article represent the author alone.
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REFERENCES
[1] Flade et al. 2022 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/reichsbuerger-razzia-festnahmen-verhaftungen-1.5710821
[2] Generalbundesanwalt. 2022. “Festnahmen von 25 mutmaßlichen Mitgliedern und Unterstützern einer terroristischen Vereinigung sowie Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen in elf Bundesländern bei insgesamt 52 Beschuldigten.“ 07.12.2022. Last accessed 17.12.2022. https://www.generalbundesanwalt.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/aktuelle/Pressemitteilung-vom-07-12-2022.html?nn=478184
[3] ibid.
[4] ibid.
[5] Zeit Online. 2022a. „Reichsbürger-Gruppierung hatte offenbar zahlreiche Mitwisser.“ 12.12.2022. https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-12/reichsbuerger-razzia-mitwisser-innenausschuss-sitzung last accessed 17.12.2022.
[6] Schönberger, C., 2019, „Geschichten vom Reich, Geschichten vom Recht: Der Fortbestand des Deutschen Reiches als rechtliche Imagination.“ p. 38. In Die Reichsbürger: Verfassungsfeinde zwischen Staatsverweigerung und Verschwörungstheorie, edited by Christoph Schönberger and Sofie Schönberger, 37-70. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag.
[7] Deutsche Anwaltsauskunft. 2018. ‚Ist Deutschland eine GmbH?’ https://anwaltauskunft.de/magazin/gesellschaft/staat-behoerden/ist-deutschland-eine-gmbh?full=1, last accessed 16.12.2022.
[8] Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. 2018. ‘Reichsbürger’ und ‚Selbstverwalter’. Staatsfeinde, Geschäftemacher, Verschwörungstheoretiker. Köln: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. URL: https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/reichsbuerger-und-selbstverwalter/2018-12-reichsbuerger-und-selbstverwalter-staatsfeinde-geschaeftemacher-verschwoerungstheoretiker.html, last accessed 16.12.2022.
[9] Keil, J.C., 2017, p. 85. „Zwischen Wahn und Rollenspiel—das Phänomen der ‚Reichsbürger’ aus psychologischer Sicht.” In Reichsbürger. Ein Handbuch, edited by Dirk Wilking, 39-90. Potsdam: Demos—Brandenburgisches Institut für Gemeinwesenberatung. And: Walkenhorst, Dennis und Maximilian Ruf. 2021. “Violent Ego-Centered Sovereignism as A Global Threat? The Case of the German ‘Reichsbürger’ and Implications for P/CVE Research”. In Researching the Evolution of Countering Violent Extremism, p. 231, edited by Farangiz Atamuradova and Sara Zeiger, 223-241. Abu Dhabi: Hedayah Center.
[10] Hüllen, Michael and Heiko Homburg. 2017. „‘Reichsbürger’ zwischen zielgerichtetem Rechtsextremismus, Gewalt und Staatsverdrossenheit.” In Reichsbürger. Ein Handbuch, edited by Dirk Wilking, 13-38. Potsdam: Demos—Brandenburgisches Institut für Gemeinwesenberatung.
[11] Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. n.d. „‚Reichsbürger’ und ‚Selbstverwalter’“, 2022, p. 103. https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/DE/themen/reichsbuerger-und-selbstverwalter/reichsbuerger-und-selbstverwalter_node.html, last accessed 16.12.2022.
[12] Zeit Online. 2022b. „Reichsbürgerszene auf 23.000 Personen angewachsen.“ 11.12.2022, https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-12/nancy-faeser-reichsbuerger-gefahr-waffenrecht, last accessed 17.12.2022.
[13] ibid.
[14] Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. 2022, p. 103.. Verfassungsschutzbericht 2021. Berlin: Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau und Heimat. https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/publikationen/themen/sicherheit/vsb-2021-gesamt.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=4, last accessed 16.12.2022.
[15] Rathje, Jan. 2021. „‘Reichsbürger’ und Souveränismus.” APuZ: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 71, no. 35-36: 34-40.
[16] e.g., Speit, 2017, p. 9.
[17] Dittrich, Miro. 2021. „Zwischen Militärgericht und ‚Corona-Diktatur’: QAnon und der ‚Tag X’“ In Die Bundestagswahl 2021. Welche Rolle Verschwörungsideologien in der Demokratie spielen, edited by CeMAS, 46-53. Berlin: CeMAS. https://cemas.io/publikationen/die-bundestagswahl-2021-welche-rolle-verschwoerungsideologien-in-der-demokratie-spielen/die-bundestagswahl-2021-welche-rolle-verschwoerungsideologien-in-der-demokratie-spielen.pdf, last accessed 16.12.2022.
[18] ibid.
[19] Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. n.d. „‚Reichsbürger‘ und ‚Selbstverwalter‘“ https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/DE/themen/reichsbuerger-und-selbstverwalter/reichsbuerger-und-selbstverwalter_node.html, last accessed 17.12.2022.
[20] Generalbundesanwalt. 2022. “Festnahmen von 25 mutmaßlichen Mitgliedern und Unterstützern einer terroristischen Vereinigung sowie Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen in elf Bundesländern bei insgesamt 52 Beschuldigten.“ 07.12.2022. Last accessed 17.12.2022. https://www.generalbundesanwalt.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/aktuelle/Pressemitteilung-vom-07-12-2022.html?nn=478184
[21] Götschenberg, Schmidt and Bräutigam. 2022. „Razzia wegen geplanten Staatsstreichs.“ 07.12.2022, https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/razzia-reichsbuerger-staatsstreich-101.html, last accessed 17.12.2022.
