Police have been seeking nationwide 189 so-called “Reichsbürger and self-governors” with arrest warrants in recent times.
This is evident from the response of the Federal Ministry of the Interior to a small question from the Left Group in the German Bundestag, which the newspapers of the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” reported in their Thursday editions. The cut-off date for the evaluation is September 30, and the numbers are updated every six months to the end of March and the end of September.
According to the ministry, there were a total of 254 open arrest warrants against the 189 individuals suspected of being “Reichsbürger and self-governors”.
20 of these arrest warrants were issued for politically motivated violent crimes, 77 for other politically motivated offenses such as intimidation, forgery of documents, insult, or incitement to hatred. The remaining arrest warrants, according to the ministry, are “attributable to the area of general criminality without political motivation”. More than 20 of the sought-after alleged Reichsbürger are believed to be hiding in foreign countries, according to the security authorities’ assessment.
Part of the suspects has been sought by arrest warrant for several years. 72 of the 254 open arrest warrants in the police’s wanted persons database as of September 30, 2024, have been outstanding since the year 2023, 32 since the year 2022, and 21 since the years 2019 to 2021. In the period between March and September 2024, a total of 93 arrest warrants were executed against persons with the notation “Reichsbürger and self-governors”, according to the ministry’s statement.
“The danger posed by so-called Reichsbürgers should no longer surprise anyone” said Left Bundestag member and interior policy expert Martina Renner to the RND. “The proportion of violent crime among individuals from this spectrum is twice as high as the overall police crime statistics.” The pressure of the authorities must therefore remain high. “Because despite a significant number of arrests and erasures, more than 100 new arrest warrants are added against Reichsbürger every six months.” Any relaxation of the authorities would not only be negligent but would likely cost human lives and put our security at risk, Renner confirmed.