The news that 25 people with connections to the "Reichsbürger" scene who had decided to launch a coup were arrested on Wednesday was hardly in the world, when the Darmstadt "lateral thinker" was already speculating on the Telegram channel about what was really behind the police operation could.

The question is whether the whole thing is just a diversionary maneuver to distract from the crime in Illerkirchberg.

In the town in Baden-Württemberg, a 27-year-old asylum seeker from Eritrea is said to have attacked and killed a fourteen-year-old with a knife.

With the arrest of the "Reichsbürger" conspirators, is the state now staging a media spectacle in order to make the deadly knife attack quickly forgotten?

Alexander Juergs

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Such a claim is of course nonsense.

It falls into the category of conspiracy myths - and most of them are very aware of it.

But that doesn't prevent it from being spread further.

Conspiracy stories are still booming on the internet.

The idea that the state is duping its citizens is widespread there, and mistrust of “the elites” is high.

And since the beginning of the pandemic and with the emergence of the heterogeneous corona protest movement, it has become alarmingly more socially acceptable.

"Reich citizens" reject the state in which they live.

They consider it a construct or a GmbH, but in no way a legitimate state entity.

The most radical among them refuse to pay taxes, and their own “Reich passports” are also sold in the scene.

According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, there are 21,000 followers of this ideology in Germany.

There should be 1000 "Reich citizens" in Hesse.

While this is a very worrying number, it is also a manageable number.

But one thing must not be overlooked: These "Reich citizens" are not moving in a vacuum.

They don't stand on their own, but over the past two years have networked with many others who reject the state with similar vehemence.

The Corona protests brought the state-sceptical scenes together: "Reichsbürger", right-wing extremists, supporters of the "QAnon" conspiracy theory, esoterics, opponents of vaccination, Putin supporters and also some radical leftists mingled with the protests against the Corona rules.

That doesn't mean, of course, that everyone who took part in the "Monday Walks" and other demonstrations dreams of a coup.

Many of the demonstrators were worried that freedom rights would be restricted too much, or, although vaccinated themselves, rejected an obligation to have a corona vaccination without fundamentally questioning democracy.

But all too often they had no problem working together with right-wing extremists and "Reich citizens".

In any case, it could be observed at the numerous Corona rallies in the Rhine-Main region: When flags of the "Reichsbürger" were waved there or emblems of the American Capitol Strikers were shown, when NPD officials marched there, then it was different from the others Demonstrators were bothered by it as well as nobody.

Anti-Semitic symbols were also repeatedly seen on the protest marches.

The organizers did not take any action against this either.

This normalization of a skepticism about democracy, this tolerance towards conspiracy beliefs and anti-Semitism is a serious threat.

The putsch of the conspirators around the Frankfurt entrepreneur Heinrich XII.

Even if the group hadn't been caught so early, Prince Reuss would probably never have succeeded.

The influence of the "Reichsbürger" on parts of the population is nevertheless greater than most people think.