Who are the Reichsbürger? On December 7, 2022, more than 3,000 police officers conducted what is likely the largest anti-terror raid in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. They arrested the ringleaders of a group from the Reichsbürger milieu that had planned a violent overthrow of the government. But who are these Reichsbürger, who do not recognize the Federal Republic of Germany as a legitimate state, fantasize about a GmbH version of the BRD, and still believe they are living in the German Empire?

Constitutional lawyers Sophie and Christoph Schönberger examine the historical roots of the Reichsbürger scene, tracing them back to the peculiarities of the German division, shedding light on the diverse spectrum of their current manifestations, and investigating the fragments of their fragmented ideology. The curious obsession of the Reichsbürger with legal norms and bureaucratic forms can easily lead one to dismiss them as marginal and ridiculous. However, the growing scene is of paradigmatic significance for the current threat to democracy. For as outdated as the Reichsbürger may seem with their references to the past Empire, they nonetheless prove to be a thoroughly contemporary phenomenon of our individualized society. They respond to widespread feelings of instability and powerlessness by inventing an imaginary law that serves as a means of radical self-empowerment. In doing so, they not only touch upon the limits of the comprehensible but also the limits of state power.

The historical development of the Reichsbürger scene offers an intriguing interpretation that goes beyond the factual situation. The Reichsbürger exemplify the current threats to our democracy. This eerie movement simultaneously reveals something unsettling about the state of our democracy. The Schönbergers are among the most prominent and journalistically talented figures in the public eye.