Police in Germany have raided and searched 12 apartments belonging to members of the neo-Nazi Reichsbürgerbewegung (Reich Citizens’ Movement) or Reichsbürger (“Reich Citizens”) in six states, Deutsche Welle reported Wednesday. The Reichsbürger movement rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state, the Federal Republic of Germany.
In October 2016, a policeman was fatally shot by a Reichsbürger in Bavaria. Prosecutors in Nuremberg now suspect one of the late officer’s colleagues of having links to the radical group.
About 200 police officers across Germany to carried out the raids early Wednesday across the states of Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. Members of the Reichsbürger are suspected of organizing a terrorist group police suspect has been procuring illegal arms and ammunition.
“The goal of today’s searches was to obtain further evidence of the actual creation of a formal group, as well as the alleged planned criminal acts and any potential tools,” state prosecutors said in a statement. No arrests have been reported.
The 12 raids targeted six suspects accused of planning attacks on police officers, asylum seekers and Jews. A seventh suspect is believed to be supporting the group by purchasing arms and ammunition.
The suspects communicate via social media, and police believe they have been planning armed attacks since the spring of 2016. However, so far police have not found evidence of specific planned attacks.
The Reichsbürger maintain that the Federal Republic of Germany is illegitimate and that the Reich’s 1919 Weimar Constitution remains in effect. Their arguments are based on a cherry-picked reading of the 1973 decision of the Federal Constitutional Court concerning the Basic Treaty between West and East Germany. The court ruled that the 1949 Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany assumes that the Reich, as a subject of international law, despite the German Surrender and the Allied occupation, had survived the collapse of Nazi Germany.
Reichsbürger followers refuse to pay taxes or fines, use homemade identification cards and registration plates, and print their own currency. One member proclaimed himself king of Germany.
The Reichsbürger movement is estimated at 4,500 members, according to domestic intelligence services. Public broadcaster SWR reported security sources saying the investigations have been centered on a 65-year-old Reichsbürger calling himself a druid, founder of the Celtic Druids, who lives in Schwetzingen, Baden-Württemberg. Police found firearms and ammunition in his home.
The druid, whom Die Welt named Druid Burgos von Buchonia, has called for the persecution of Jews and Muslims on his Russian social media network VK page. “My self-preservation instinct tells me that I must destroy Jews and Muslims, before they destroy my tribe or my family,” he wrote.
Germany’s pagan druids have disavowed the druid, according to Deutsche Welle.