Germany’s Interior Ministry had outstanding arrest warrants against 189 suspects deemed members of far-right groups that do not recognize the modern German state, media group RND reported on Thursday.
Authorities said the suspects were part of the “Reichsbürger” (“Citizens of the Reich”) or “Selbstverwalter” (“self-administering”) groups, which claim to be in the defunct German Empire or on lands they unilaterally declared. in Germany.
The figure was published on September 30, 2024 in response to a parliamentary request for information from the socialist Left Party.
According to the ministry, a total of 254 arrest warrants have been issued against these suspects, some of whom are the subject of more than one arrest warrant.
There were 43 other people wanted for at least one violent crime and 3 charged with violent crimes.
The ministry said 20 of the arrest warrants were for violent political crimes and others for politically motivated nonviolent crimes, such as forgery, coercion or incitement to racial violence.
It classified the remaining mandates as “the category of crimes without political motivation. ”
The German government estimates that more than 20 of those wanted live abroad; some of them have been at the giant for years.
Between the end of March and September last year, 93 fresh warrants of this kind were issued against either “Reichsbürger” or “Selbstverwalter,” the data showed.
The “Reichsbürger” denies the legitimacy and lifestyle of the modern German state, as well as the dissolution in 1918 of the extinct German Empire.
Their concepts of what and where the German state is are “directly against the territorial integrity of our neighboring states and against efforts to achieve understanding between nations,” according to the Interior Ministry.
Antisemitism has also often been part of some of the group’s members’ ideology, the ministry said, in some cases including stances like Holocaust denial.
Members of the other group, the “Selbstverwalter”, claim that they view their legal status in Germany in the same way, but base their argument on the fact that they have unilaterally declared their sovereign and independent ownership.
“With their behavior, Selbstverwalter want above all to resist paying taxes and other demands like foreclosures,” the ministry said.
Several similar trials are taking place across the country of an alleged Reichsbürger organization accused of plotting to violently overthrow the Reichsbürger.
The most prominent defendant is Henry XIII Prince Reus, a descendant of the German aristocracy born as a private citizen in 1951. The organization is accused of plotting to install him as head of a future state.
msh/dj (epd, open sources)