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German authorities have banned an extremist group known as the “Kingdom of Germany”, arresting four of its senior members and raiding numerous properties across the country in a large-scale operation on Tuesday.
The group forms part of the wider “Reichsbürger” (Citizens of the Reich) movement, a far-right conspiracy theorist network that denies the legitimacy of the modern German state.
Among those arrested was the group’s self-declared monarch, Peter Fitzek, a 59-year-old former chef and karate instructor who founded the organisation and claims to have attracted around 6,000 followers.
Once dismissed as eccentric outliers, members of the Reichsbürger movement have become increasingly radicalised in recent years and are now seen as a threat to public safety, according to German officials.
In coordinated raids across seven federal states, including Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg, hundreds of officers searched properties linked to the so-called “Koenigreich Deutschland.”
Germany’s interior ministry formally announced the dissolution of the group, accusing it of establishing a parallel state structure and undermining the country’s constitutional order. The group reportedly created its own currency and identity documents and operated an illicit insurance system for its followers.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the network had built up “a counter-state” and engaged in “economic criminal structures” that seriously violated Germany’s legal system.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe confirmed that Fitzek and three alleged ringleaders were detained. They are being investigated as members of a criminal organisation.
Fitzek, who dubbed himself the “supreme sovereign” of his breakaway “kingdom”, allegedly controlled the group’s key decisions and sought to re-establish the borders of the German Empire as they stood in 1871. He had even staged a coronation ceremony in 2012, complete with royal regalia.
In a 2023 interview, Fitzek described his movement as a response to what he called “mass manipulation” in Germany. He said his supporters were individuals with a “pioneering spirit” who wanted to “make a positive change in this world.”
Authorities said the group sustained itself financially through unlawful banking and insurance operations, as well as donations.
The broader Reichsbürger movement consists of various loosely connected groups that share similar ideologies. In 2022, authorities foiled a plot by one such faction to overthrow the government and install a German aristocrat, Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss, as head of state.
Another group was charged with planning to abduct then-health minister Karl Lauterbach in protest against Covid-19 measures.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency estimated in 2022 that the Reichsbürger movement had around 23,000 members, more than 2,000 of whom were considered potentially violent.
