exclusive
Hans-Georg Maaßen’s Union of Values is civil. However, his most important comrade-in-arms maintained a close exchange with Henry XIII. Prince Reuss, as research by NDR, WDR and SZ show.
Now there will be another election option in the party spectrum. A party that does not explicitly rule out coalitions with the AfD and that could play an important role in the 2024 election year, especially in Thuringia and Saxony. Two men in particular drove this project forward: Hans-Georg Maaßen, controversial former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), who recently moved further and further politically to the right, which is why the CDU wanted to throw him out of the party.
The general public hardly knows the second most important man behind the Union of Values project, but for conspiracy ideologists he is a kind of pop star: Markus Krall, economist from Frankfurt am Main, “crash prophet”, book author, ex-managing director of Degussa Goldhandel – and for some time now Time member of the Union of Values.
Krall has been one of the most important masterminds of the newly founded party since January 2023 and was one of the first to publicly promote the party project on social networks under the hashtag “Let’s roll”.
Who is this Markus Krall? Krall was also in contact with Heinrich XIII. Prince Reuss, who has now been charged as a suspected right-wing terrorist. This was reported by ZEIT. Krall only got to know Reuss “on business,” as his lawyer told the newspaper. Research by WDR, NDR and “Süddeutscher Zeitung” now show that Krall and Reuß have known each other much longer and more intensively than previously known.
Krall is not considered a defendant
The investigators looked very closely at the connection between the two, but did not classify Krall as a member of the accused group. He is not considered a defendant in the proceedings, but rather a witness. At the beginning of 2023, investigators found Krall entering the country Frankfurt Airport secured his cell phone and later also evaluated communications that were stored on a laptop.
From this we can reconstruct a very familiar relationship since 2015. Reuss and Krall apparently agreed in their contempt for state institutions. Krall wrote in August 2021 that “we (…) have to abolish these dirty authorities and their interference in our families (…)”.
In his criticism of the state, including regarding the conspiracy myth of the so-called Deep State, Reuss apparently communicated his criticism of the state to Krall so openly by email that Krall asked him in 2020 that in the future he should “not discuss critical topics by email, but rather by email “bring paper with you to personal meetings”.
Apparently strongly influenced by ideology
In addition to business contacts, Krall’s acquaintance with Reuss was obviously strongly influenced by ideology, and Krall is also said to have supported Reuss in practical terms at times. For example, when planning to create a new state order.
Apparently Reuss met with a group of “invisible patriots” the year before the alleged terrorist organization was founded, at least according to email correspondence. In addition to a Saxon nobleman and a journalist from Bavaria who has since died, Krall was also part of this group. He appears in numerous communications from the group.
Krall and Reuß apparently went to several secret meetings together, once at Waidmannsheil Castle in eastern Thuringia. From this meeting there is even a kind of confidentiality agreement from Krall from November 2020 that there should be no further communication about what was discussed.
The meetings of the suspected terrorist organization later took place at the same location at the invitation of Prince Reuss, to which Krall received an invitation but did not attend.
Krall and Reuß once met in the Rheingau and once at a castle in Bavaria, according to emails available to the investigators. These show arrival, appointment determination, planned group of participants. The Bavarian host wrote about “invisible patriots.”
Reuss is said to have boasted to her that he had “spoken to Dr. Maaßen in Frankfurt” and that he had given him his business card. There is no evidence of contact between Reuß and the former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, nor whether anything came of the contact.
Maaßen did not comment on this when asked. Furthermore, he does not comment on the activities of “this crazy citizen of the Reich” – Reuss. He told Krall that he had known him for several years and that they had a good personal and professional relationship.
16-page “Constitution for Germany”?
A year before the suspected putschists formed around Reuss, Krall is said to have been, according to research by WDR, NDR and SZ sent a 16-page “Constitution for Germany” written by him for Reuss and his colleagues at the time, with whom he wanted to proclaim a principality, as can be seen from correspondence between the two.
This “draft constitution” contains the right of every “blameless citizen” to bear arms, and only those who do not receive state transfer payments or subsidies should be allowed to vote. According to statements made by other suspects to the investigators, the reorganization plans of the suspected terrorist organization in 2022 are also said to have been based on Krall’s draft constitution.
The Krall office apparently also helped Reuss with his special contacts in Russia. Together they are said to have met M., a Russian diplomat and Sberbank employee, with whom, according to investigators, Krall had maintained a very warm relationship for years and is said to have called him a “friend”.
He is said to have been in charge of economic issues and contacts in Germany in the 1990s on behalf of the Russian government and worked in Frankfurt and later for the Russian Embassy in Berlin.
Even after the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Krall sent the Russians “spiritual blessings for their great and holy country” in the fall of 2022, which M. should deliver to the consulate in Bonn, since Krall was unable to attend a reception due to health reasons could. In the chat, he wrote that his prayers and thoughts were with M.’s country, “the island of the law and the righteous, the place where God’s benevolent gaze rests.”
Markus Krall was probably not part of the later circle of conspirators around Prince Reuss. According to investigators, he is said to have attended one of the first meetings of the later group in October 2021, but did not become a member.
At first he received invitations, but didn’t go. One of the defendants also reported to investigators that an advisor to Reuss had examined Krall astrologically and did not consider him suitable. And so other “council members” rejected him as a future finance minister in a new state. But Reuss continued to stay in contact with Krall.
“Time of great turning point”
In the fall of 2022, shortly before Reuss and the other suspects were arrested, Krall first expressed his respect to Reuss in writing. On September 1, 2022, Krall wrote to Reuß about a “time of great turning point”. “The corrupt class of our political ‘elite’ has now done everything to ensure that the catastrophe becomes total. This is the only way catharsis can succeed.”
He praises the prince for having “done what was necessary” so that Holy Germany could regain structure. He attached a poem written especially for Reuss, which was intended to strengthen his “upright fighting heart”. It’s called “Ragnarök”, “Fate of the Gods”, comprises a total of 12 verses and contains a lot of pathos. “Spiegel” first reported on these emails.
A few weeks after these lines, Krall met with Reuss in a Frankfurt steak restaurant. In addition to Krall and the prince, there were two other now accused terror suspects, probably the most important protagonists of the military wing of the “Reichsbürger” network. Officials from the Hessian State Criminal Police Office observed the meeting.
Krall is said to have left the restaurant after about an hour. Reuss later asked him by email not to contact the people he met at lunch and not to write anything down. Krall replied that he didn’t trust these people anyway – they were very strange and cranky.
He later explained that the people were unknown to him and that he quickly left the meal because of their confusing political statements. The conversation would have had exclusively economic policy content.
The lawyer of Henry XIII. Prince Reuss left questions unanswered. And Markus Krall also commented when asked WDR, NDR and SZ neither on this nor on other aspects of his connections to the “Reich Citizens”.
Prince Reuss left questions unanswered
However, Krall had recently spoken a lot about his desired future in the Union of Values. Although he is not seeking an official position, he does want to participate in the development of financial policy.
Maaßen had recently distanced himself from Krall, even if only temporarily, because he sometimes overshot the mark. On Saturday evening, both of them appeared side by side in a video from the Union of Values, like two founding fathers proudly presenting their baby together.