A court in Nuremberg sentenced an alleged member of the far-right Reichsbürger movement to life in jail on Monday for the murder of a police officer.

On October 19 last year, Wolfgang P. fired on special police forces who had raided his home in the Bavarian municipality of Georgensgmünd. The officers were seeking to confiscate his cache of about 30 hunting weapons because local authorities no longer considered him fit to handle them.

Read more: German military investigating right-wing extremism within its ranks

A 32-year-old officer was killed and two others wounded. Wolfgang P. was charged with one count of murder, three of attempted murder and two of serious bodily harm.

Public prosecutor Matthias Held accused the suspect of having long planned an attack on police officers. During the ambush, he shot at the officers 11 times with the goal of injuring and killing as many of them as possible, the prosecutor said, calling for a life sentence and a statement emphasizing the severity of the crime.

Defense lawyer Susanne Koller refuted that accusation and criticized the raid as "amateurish" and unnecessary. She denied he had intent to murder and issued a plea for negligent homicide, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

The Reichsbürger movement in Germany What do Reichsbürger believe? "Reichsbürger" translates to "citizens of the Reich." The nebulous movement rejects the modern German state, and insists that the German Empire's 1937 or 1871 borders still exist and the modern country is an administrative construct still occupied by Allied powers. For Reichsbürger, the government, parliament, judiciary and security agencies are puppets installed and controlled by foreigners.

The Reichsbürger movement in Germany What do they do? The Reichsbürger refuse to pay taxes or fines. They see their personal property, such as their houses, as independent entities outside the authority of the Federal Republic of Germany, and reject the German constitution and other legal texts, but also swamp German courts with lawsuits. They produce their own aspirational documents such as passports and driving licenses.

The Reichsbürger movement in Germany How much of a threat are they? The Reichsbürger scene began to develop in the 1980s and is a disparate, leaderless movement that has grown to about 19,000 supporters, according to German intelligence officials. Of those, about 950 have been identified as far-right extremists and at least 1,000 have a license to own firearms. Many subscribe to anti-Semitic ideologies.

The Reichsbürger movement in Germany Who are its members? One was Mr. Germany According to German authorities, the average Reichsbürger is 50 years old, male, and is socially and financially disadvantaged. The movement's members are concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of Germany. Adrian Ursache, a former winner of the Mister Germany beauty pageant, is also a Reichsbürger and was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2019 for shooting and injuring a policeman.

The Reichsbürger movement in Germany Turning point The case of Wolfgang P., who in October 2017 was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a police officer, is seen as a turning point for how German authorities deal with the extremist group. P., an alleged Reichsbürger member, shot at officers who were raiding his home to confiscate weapons. The case gained international attention and set off alarm bells over the escalation of violence.

The Reichsbürger movement in Germany What are the authorities doing about it? German authorities were accused of long underestimating the threat. In 2017 for the first time Germany’s domestic intelligence service documented extremist crimes perpetrated by individual Reichsbürger. Since then there have been several raids on Reichsbürger targets and subgroups have been banned. Police and military have also probed whether they have Reichsbürger in their own ranks.

The Reichsbürger movement in Germany International parallels, conspiracy theories Reichsbürger have been seen waving Russian flags, leading to allegations that they are funded by Russia with the aim to destabilize the German government. Germany's Reichsbürger are also compared to US groups such as "freemen-on-the-land," who believe that they are bound only by laws they consent to and can therefore declare themselves independent of the government and the rule of law. Author: Samantha Early, Rina Goldenberg



Reichsbürger in the spotlight

The case focused attention on the Reichsbürger, which roughly translates as "Citizens of the Reich," a loose and diverse group of extremists who reject the authority of the modern Federal Republic of Germany. They subscribe to the conspiracy theory that since Germany never signed a peace treaty with the Allies at the end of World War II, the 1937 or 1871 borders of the German Empire still exist. They believe today's Germany is an administrative construct still occupied by the Western powers.

Read more: Reichsbürger theories debunked

They do not recognize any state apparatus, often refusing to pay tax. They often print their own passports and driver's licenses and swamp local authorities with lawsuits. Their theories have been disproven.

They number about 15,000, according to intelligence officials. Of those, about 900 have been identified as far-right extremists and 1,000 have a license to own firearms. Many ascribe to anti-Semitic, far-right populist or Nazi ideologies. There has been concern that some Reichsbürger have made their way into the police force.

se/rt (dpa, AFP)

Editor's note: Deutsche Welle follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.