Four members of a banned extremist group went on trial in the western German city of Duesseldorf on Friday, including a man styling himself as "king" of Germany.
The four men are accused of being ringleaders of the "Kingdom of Germany", an offshoot of the conspiracy theorist movement "Citizens of the Reich" ("Reichsbuerger"), which rejects the legitimacy of the modern German republic.
The group's self-proclaimed "king", Peter Fitzek, 61, a former chef and karate instructor, founded the organisation in 2012. He was detained along with the other three in May 2025, when the group was banned by the interior ministry.
The organisation "aimed to abolish the system of the Federal Republic of Germany and replace it with its own pseudo-state structures", chief prosecutor Ingo Kaiser told the Duesseldorf Higher Regional Court.
Fitzek insisted on being identified as "Peter the First", prompting judge Jan van Lessen to determine that the defendant was refusing to "provide proper information regarding his personal details".
Long dismissed by critics as malcontents and oddballs, the Reichsbuerger have become increasingly radicalised in recent years and are seen as a growing security threat.
Fitzek's group, known in German as "Koenigreich Deutschland", claimed around 6,000 members at the time it was banned.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office accused the group of establishing parallel institutions, issuing its own currency and identity papers and running an insurance scheme for its members.
As "supreme sovereign", Fitzek had "control and decision-making power in all key areas", the prosecutor's office said.
Fitzek, who once ran unsuccessfully for parliament, told AFP in an interview in 2023 that founding the organisation was the only answer to the "mass manipulation" he saw in German society.
His followers tend to be people with a "pioneering spirit" who "want to make a positive change in this world", Fitzek told AFP in Wittenberg, the group's original base in eastern Germany.
The case in Duesseldorf is one of several across Germany involving followers of the Reichsbuerger movement.
In 2022, members of a group including an ex-MP and former soldiers were arrested over a plot to attack parliament, overthrow the government and install aristocrat and businessman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss as head of state.
Reuss and several accomplices have been on trial in Frankfurt since 2024.
ttt/fz/jhb
