{"id":1410,"date":"2026-04-01T10:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T10:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/1410\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T10:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T10:19:07","slug":"three-reichsburger-backers-face-trial-in-germany-over-coup-and-kidnapping-plot-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/1410\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Reichsb\u00fcrger backers face trial in Germany over coup and kidnapping plot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three men with alleged ties to a German extremist group that plotted to overthrow the government and kidnap a minister will go on trial in Munich on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The men are accused of backing the self-styled “United Patriots” group, part of Germany’s Reichsb\u00fcrger scene.<\/p>\n

The term, meaning “citizens of the Reich,” refers to a group of extremists and conspiracy theorists who reject the legitimacy of the German republic.<\/p>\n

Four United Patriots members were jailed in March 2025 over plans to trigger a civil war in Germany through violence with the aim of taking over state power.<\/p>\n

They were also found guilty of plotting to kidnap then-Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who was a target over the German government’s COVID-era restrictions.<\/p>\n

The men going on trial on Wednesday, named as 60-year-old Achim M, 71-year-old Joachim K and 62-year-old Rainer S, are accused of supporting the group and backing its coup plans.<\/p>\n

According to prosecutors, they had all been earmarked to serve as government ministers in a re-established “Kingdom of Prussia” after Germany’s system had been overthrown.<\/p>\n

The group, referred to by investigators as the Kaiserreichsgruppe or “Imperial Group”, was allegedly committed to forcibly establishing a new authoritarian Germany based on the old 1871 imperial constitution.<\/p>\n

Series of trials<\/p>\n

Last year, the three men and one woman convicted were sentenced to between 5 years and 9 months and 8 years in jail by the Koblenz higher regional court.<\/p>\n

They had planned to carry out a sabotage attack dubbed “Silent Night” to disable the power grid, in the hope of seizing power in the ensuing chaos.<\/p>\n

Two more people, a man and a woman, were also jailed in April 2025 for being accomplices in the plot.<\/p>\n

The trial in Munich is one of several currently targeting alleged members of the Reichsb\u00fcrger movement, including a group of Reichsb\u00fcrger led by the self-styled Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss, who are also currently on trial in three separate courts for plotting to overthrow the government.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The main defendant Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, front left, is lead off a temporary courtroom that was built for a trial starting on Tuesday in Frankfurt, Germany, May 21, 2024 – Boris Roessler\/dpa via AP <\/p>\n

In addition to Reuss, defendants in that case include an ex-army officer and a former lawmaker from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.<\/p>\n

There were around 26,000 Reichsb\u00fcrger in Germany in 2024, according to the federal domestic intelligence agency (BfV), up from around 25,000 in 2023.<\/p>\n

In November, German police arrested a man loosely linked to the Reichsb\u00fcrger movement who allegedly made online calls on the darknet to kill politicians, including former Chancellors Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three men with alleged ties to a German extremist group that plotted to overthrow the government and kidnap…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1312,1314,5,1221,1223,1297,1313,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-1410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-extremist-group","9":"tag-frankfurt","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-imperial-group","12":"tag-karl-lauterbach","13":"tag-munich","14":"tag-reichsburger","15":"tag-united-patriots"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}