13-05-2025
Germany arrests self-declared 'king' and bans his extremist group
He has previously been jailed for repeatedly driving without a licence, following a decision to hand his back in a symbolic rejection of the law. At the end of one trial session, Fitzek was seen getting into his car in front of the court and driving off.
Fitzek is one of around 25,000 Reichsbürger in Germany. Numbers have been growing over the last few years.
Many are right-wing extremists who peddle racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. They refuse to recognise the authority of security forces and many possess illegal arms, which has led to shoot-outs with police. Officials say that around 2,500 are potentially violent and that 1,350 are classed as right-wing extremists.
In 2022 dozens of people were arrested, many of them Reichsbürger, for plotting to overthrow the German government in Berlin. They were accused of planning a violent coup, which included kidnapping the health minister, to create "civil war conditions" to bring down German democracy.
In the past, Reichsbürger were often dismissed as eccentric cranks because of their outlandish ideas.
But as the far right has grown in strength politically in Germany over the last decade, officials now see them as a serious threat.
The federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe said Fitzek was arrested along with three other suspected ringleaders of the group, which it classified as a criminal organisation.
As the "so-called supreme sovereign", Fitzek had "control and decision-making power in all key areas", the office said.
"The 'Kingdom of Germany' considers itself a sovereign state within the meaning of international law and strives to extend its claimed 'national territory' to the borders of the German Empire of 1871," it added in a statement.
