Photo: Silas Stein/ DPA
At the weekend, so-called citizens of the Reich met at a horse ranch in Leinefeld-Worbis in the district of Eichsfeld for a "Second Future Congress".
According to their own statements, the police carried out around 200 checks on the occasion of the gathering of the "Reichsbürger" scene. Four arrest warrants were executed and two reports were made, the police said on Monday.
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The charges are therefore about the accusation of forgery of documents and possible drug offenses. The program of events circulated on social networks, according to which right-wing extremists were among the announced speakers. According to security authorities, the event was considered a networking meeting of supra-regional importance.
The term "Reichsbürger" is applied to people who deny the existence of the Federal Republic. Among other things, they reject the democratic order in Germany. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimates that around 23,000 people belong to this scene. In Thuringia alone, there are said to be more than 1000.
Warning against better networking and greater radicalism of right-wing forces
Rhineland-Palatinate's Interior Minister Michael Ebling (SPD) warned on Monday of dangerous alliances, an increasing network of Reichsbürger, right-wing extremists and so-called delegitimizers – people who are not bound to any ideology, but nevertheless fight the state like right-wing extremists and "Reichsbürger".
Right-wing extremism is becoming more radical, more violent and more diverse, Ebling said in Mainz at the presentation of the 2022 report of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The security challenges have become greater due to "alliances of enemies of the state" at home and hybrid threats from abroad, especially since the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
ala/dpa