Germany forbids extremist movement and arrests self -proclaimed ‘King’ Peter

A self -proclaimed “king” of Germany and three of his senior “subjects” have been arrested and forbade their group to overthrow the state.

Peter Fitzek, 59, was one of the arrested in morning attacks in seven states on Tuesday, involving around 800 security staff.

The government banned their group, the Reichsbürger, or “Citizens of the Reich”, who wants to establish the Königreich Deutschland, or “Kingdom of Germany”.

Alexander Dobrindt, the German Minister of the Interior, accused the group of an attempt to “undermine the rule of law” by creating an alternative state and “distributing anti -Semitic conspiracy stories to support their supposed claim on authority”.

His ministry announced the dissolution of the group and accused himself by “economic criminal structures”.

Fitzek, a former chef and karate instructor, calls himself ‘king’ and identified himself with judges as ‘Peter the first’ in an earlier court case.

He himself crowned himself in 2012 while he was dressed in ermine robes and waved a medieval sword. Since then he has been buying land and real estate throughout Germany.

Reichsbürgers have their own currency, flag and ID cards and want to set up individual banking and health systems.

Fitzek claims to have thousands of followers – or “subjects”.

In an interview with the BBC in 2022 he denied violent intentions, but also described the German state as “destructive and sick”.

“I am not interested in being part of this fascist and satanic system,” he said Jenny Hill from the BBC, when they visited his “Kingdom” in East Germany.

Fitzek is repeatedly clashed with the authorities and refused to adhere to the German laws, often on what seems to be in a publicity -seeking way.

He was previously imprisoned because he repeatedly drives without a driver’s license, after a decision to give his back in a symbolic rejection of the law. At the end of one trial session, Fitzek was seen in his car in front of the field and driving away.

Is Fitzek One of the approximately 25,000 Reichsbürger in Germany. The number has grown in recent years.

Many are right -wing extremists who do racist and anti -Semitic conspiracy theories. They refuse to recognize the authority of security forces and many have illegal weapons, which has led to shootings with the police. Officials say that around 2500 potential are violent and that 1,350 are classified as right -wing extremists.

In 2022 dozens of people were arrested, many of them Reichsbürger, for planning to overthrow the German government in Berlin. They were accused of planning a violent coup, including the kidnapping of the Minister of Health, to create “Civil War circumstances” to bring down German democracy.

In the past, Reichsbürger was often rejected as eccentric cranks because of their bizarre ideas.

But because the far right has grown in Germany over the past decade, they now see officials as a serious threat.

The office of the federal public prosecutor in Karlsruhe said that Fitzek was arrested together with three other suspected leaders of the group, who classified it as a criminal organization.

As the “so-called Supreme Sovereign” had Fitzek “control and decision-making power in all important areas,” the office said.

“The ‘Kingdom of Germany’ regards itself as a sovereign state within the meaning of international law and strives to extend his claimed ‘national territory’ to the boundaries of the German Empire of 1871,” it added in a statement.