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Hechingen regional court and correctional facility, where a search took place in November

Photo: Christoph Schmidt / dpa

Almost two months ago, law enforcement officers searched 20 apartments of suspected "Reich citizens" in Baden-Württemberg and other federal states.

Now new details about the events have become known.

The nine accused are five women between the ages of 54 and 73 (54, 57, 57, 61, 73) and four men between the ages of 33 and 59 (33, 55, 56, 59).

The Ministry of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg writes this in a response to a request from the Green Party, which is also available online.

Accordingly, ten objects were searched in Baden-Württemberg on November 23rd.

These were nine apartments and a detention room in the Hechingen correctional facility, where, according to the public prosecutor's office, one of the accused was housed on other charges.

The police headquarters in Ravensburg (Waldburg, Bermatingen, Inzigkofen), Reutlingen (Rottenburg, Bitz), Konstanz (Gunningen, Rottweil), Offenburg (Kuppenheim), Ulm (Bad Schussenried) and Karlsruhe (Oberhausen-Rheinhausen) were affected by the search measures.

The Munich public prosecutor's office was in charge of the raid.

The authority announced at the time that the group wanted to block their communication channels by making targeted, mass contact with authorities and thus influence their decisions.

The 20 defendants, aged between 25 and 74, are accused of forming a criminal organization.

A total of 20 apartments were examined during the major raid in November in eight federal states - Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and Hamburg.

Charges with forming a criminal organization, sedition and coercion

The alleged ringleader of the “Reichsbürger” group comes from Upper Bavaria, from Olching in the Fürstenfeldbruck district.

The 58-year-old was charged in April 2022 with, among other things, forming a criminal organization, sedition and coercion.

The man is said to have operated the group's main Telegram channel.

The people affected by the search measures in Baden-Württemberg are subscribers to the Telegram channel.

“Reich citizens” are people who do not recognize the Federal Republic and its democratic structures.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimated that the scene had around 23,000 followers nationwide in 2022 (2021: 21,000).

More than five percent - around 1,250 people - are right-wing extremists.

Around 2,300 “Reich citizens” and “self-administrators” are considered violence-oriented.

Details about the “Reichsbürger” milieu

The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) attributed around 3,800 people (2018: 3,200) to the milieu of “Reich citizens” and self-administrators in Baden-Württemberg.

The Interior Ministry now writes that the scene has an average age of around 53 years.

Over half of all followers are older than 50 years.

Around 62 percent of the known members of the milieu are male and 38 percent are female.

The proportion of women has increased significantly - due to the protests against the corona measures.

Women increasingly attracted attention with arguments and views that were typical of the Reich citizen scene.

»According to current knowledge, around 20 to 25 percent of the milieu is organized in groups of people.

The proportion of those who are active in such groups has recently increased," the Interior Ministry's response continued.

mgo/dpa