Shortly before the start of the first trial against the alleged “Reich citizens” around Henry XIII. Prince Reuss began a trial against one of the men accused of being the ringleader in the Munich district court on Thursday. Former colonel Maximilian Eder, who will stand trial in Frankfurt from May 21 for membership in a terrorist organization, must answer in Munich for a relatively harmless offense: he is charged with drunk driving, intentionally endangering road traffic, and driving without Driving license and forgery charged.
Although he had already lost his license at the time because of drunk driving, he is said to have driven drunk several times in 2022. According to the prosecution, he already had 1.8 per mille in his blood that morning when he drove his white BMW into a tree while fleeing a police patrol in March 2022. Just around two weeks later, police officers caught him with a blood alcohol level of 1.3 on the Mittlerer Ring in Munich. According to the Attorney General’s Office, in his unsuccessful attempt to escape, he damaged two parked cars, a scooter and a motorcycle.
Eder initially did not comment on the allegations, but instead gave a long, extensive and anecdotal account of his personal career (“I was second best in my studies”) and his career in the Bundeswehr, where he “always found unconventional solutions” for the “practical things in life”. Regarding his alcohol consumption during his time in the Bundeswehr, he said it was “like a Bavarian, completely normal.”
After all, he had been in prison for 16 months, Eder replied to the judge’s request that he perhaps only tell “every other punchline.” “I could only talk against the walls.” There was applause from his fans in the audience, who were repeatedly warned by the judge to calm down.
The trial began under tightened security measures in the hall that is usually used for state security proceedings in the criminal justice center in Munich. “A traffic offense in the guise of state security,” said the public prosecutor. “We are not here before the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court, we are before the Munich District Court,” emphasized the judge in one of her attempts to persuade Eder to shorten his statements.
After a raid in December 2022, federal prosecutors charged 27 suspects
In Frankfurt, Eder will sit in the dock together with other suspected ringleaders of the group, which is said to have planned and specifically prepared a coup and a storm on the Bundestag in Berlin from August 2021. In December 2022 there was a large-scale anti-terror raid against the group in several German federal states and abroad. The federal prosecutor’s office charged 27 suspects.
The trial in Frankfurt is about suspected ringleaders, the trial against the so-called military wing begins in Stuttgart next week and the trial against the other alleged members in Munich in June. The so-called Reichsbürger in Germany claim that the German Reich (1871-1945) continues to exist, hence their name. The Federal Republic and its laws do not recognize them.