As of: December 14, 2023 9:17 a.m
Michael F. from Hanover was once considered a competent chief detective, but now the Federal Prosecutor General has brought charges against the “Reich citizen” for membership in a terrorist organization. What is he accused of – and what does his lawyer say about it?
It is a Powerpoint presentation that Michael F. gave at a meeting at Henry XIII’s hunting lodge. Prince Reuss is said to have held in Thuringia. “The cart is deep in the mud,” he analyzes in the first pages. He then outlines how he imagines reconstruction after the collapse of the Federal Republic: Illustrated with a black and white photo of the destroyed Berlin in 1945. This is what Germany could soon look like again, then the “new order” would have to take over.
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Charges filed: Police officer F. should recruit more police officers
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office is certain: F. was responsible for the “Interior Affairs” department within the group’s “military arm” – and was supposed to continue to do so in a later government after the planned coup. The terrorist group was ultimately founded in order to violently eliminate the state order and to establish its own form of government, which had already been largely developed. The defense contradicts: “They didn’t want to overthrow. They assumed that the social system was so ailing that it would collapse at the instigation of alliances, an extraterrestrial and an earthly alliance,” says Martin Heynert, who is with Michael F. defended by other lawyers. “After this collapse, the hour would have come for Michael F. to use his police knowledge to build a new security structure, for the benefit of the citizens, as he himself says.”
Conspiracy myths from the “Reich Citizens” scene
Alien and terrestrial alliances – it’s a world of thought that the investigators from the Federal Criminal Police Office probably had to think about during their interrogations. Michael F., who was once her colleague, gave the investigators insights in hours-long conversations – around 4,000 pages of files are filled with his statement alone. The prosecutors speak of conspiracy myths from the QAnon ideology. The alliance is a non-existent, technically superior “secret society of governments, intelligence services and militaries from various states, including the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” according to a press release.
Food, red wine and conspiracy
The indictment lists that F. is said to have taken part in three of six meetings of the Council – the central body, similar to a government. Gatherings that apparently included lots of wine and five courses. At least that’s how F’s lawyer describes it. In conspiratorial meetings, F. is said to have tried to get others to join in. According to information from NDR, one of them was in Lower Saxony in the Harz Mountains, another was near Sehnde in the Hanover region, near the correctional facility where he is today. “From Mr. F.’s point of view, the association was not criminal and not terrorist,” says the lawyer, unlike the prosecution. “He certainly wouldn’t have stormed the Bundestag. He says he would never have taken part and would have left the group immediately.”
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Mammoth proceedings in Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart
It remains to be seen whether he can convince the court with this. If the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court accepts the indictment and opens the proceedings, Michael F. will be seated with nine other defendants from the group surrounding the entrepreneur Prince Reuß. This included a management consultant from the Harburg district who came to the meeting in Sehnde and is said to have donated a total of 160,000 euros to the group. Two other people from Lower Saxony are accused in Munich: a doctor from Vechelde and a lawyer from Hanover. Because the group of 27 accused is too large for one courtroom, they are divided into three locations, Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart. Other supporters – including two police officers from Lower Saxony – are being investigated.
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