“Reichsbürger” trial: Defendant distances himself from conspiracy theories

When the man with the thinning hair talks about his life, he paints a down-to-earth but also somewhat dazzling picture. The 55-year-old is the first defendant to comment on the allegations in the terror trial against associates of Heinrich Prinz Reuß at the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court.

He presents himself as a harmless computer mechanic, a tinkerer and a conscientious objector who is politically on the left and has already voted for the Green Party. He also completed a shamanism course. In any case, he doesn’t want anything to do with violence. “I have no affinity for guns,” he says. “I have problems with camouflage clothes.” Nevertheless, according to his own statements, he met with the men of the suspected terrorist group, which is accused of bloody coup plans.

“Wolf” in the group and sheep in court

The accused engineer clearly distances himself from the conspiracy theories of the “Reich Citizens” and the overthrow plans. The federal prosecutor’s office accuses him of having planned and built the IT infrastructure for the group and of having procured laptops. His self-chosen nickname in the group: “Wolf”. But in court he presents himself as a sheep.

The trial is the first of three mammoth proceedings against the alleged group of conspirators around Prince Reuss. The total of 26 defendants are said to have planned a violent coup. According to the prosecution, Reuss should have acted as the head of a new form of government. Ex-soldiers are also among the accused.

In Stuttgart it is primarily about the military arm of the group, which should have enforced the takeover of power by force of arms. According to the indictment, more than 280 military-organized homeland security companies have already begun to be set up. The President of the Higher Regional Court, Andreas Singer, spoke in advance of one of the largest state security proceedings in the history of the Federal Republic.

The defendant wanted to contribute to civil defense

The accused engineer reports that he was contacted because several people wanted to set up homeland security forces in the event of a system collapse. An IT person was needed for this. He wanted to make a contribution to civil defense and connect people. But he had nothing to do with the narratives surrounding an alleged “Day X” or an international political “alliance”. He just likes to listen to something like this for a long time, he says, “even if it sounds wrong to many others.”

The defendant describes his strong penchant for crisis prevention. His father, a war veteran, always took “extreme precautions” and once got an offer for a small fallout shelter in the garden, the man reports. The topic of power outages was something that really bothered him.

“Why-Child” does not question the actions of the Reuss group

In court he presents himself as a curious scientist who always has to get to the bottom of things, as a “why child”. In recent years he has campaigned for “digital sovereignty” and against “surveillance capitalism” by large tech companies and wanted to create a village café platform for the people in his homeland. However, the “Why Child” did not question the fact that meetings with the other alleged masterminds of the Reuss Group discussed the use of weapons or that he was sent a sample military passport from the “new German army”.

The defendant signed a confidentiality agreement

At an early meeting with a contact person for the Reuss Group, he was presented with a confidentiality agreement in connection with the supposedly planned “reactivation of Germany” – including the threat of the death penalty for violations. A total of 160 people are said to have signed the declaration. The defendant reports that he laughed at the threat. That’s exactly why he signed it. He thought to himself: “If they kill me, then they don’t have IT.”

According to investigators, the group also wanted to go through towns with questionnaires to recruit followers. The 55-year-old should therefore edit the sheets. First, the Covid vaccination status was queried, then personal data, then your own experience with weapons and “contacts with authorities in the Federal Republic of Germany”. According to him, the defendant wasn’t interested in that either. With regard to the representatives of the “Reichsbürger” ideology, he speaks in court of the “sworn circle”. However, he admits that he had installed remote maintenance software on the computers one day before “Day X”.

Judge: Argument not completely understandable

The judge makes no secret of the fact that he cannot fully understand the defendant’s argument. According to judge Joachim Holzhausen, he portrayed himself as a person who studied, who deals with communication, who “thinks immensely.” The engineer, on the other hand, argues with his supposedly catastrophic general education, especially in history and politics, and with the fact that he only deals with things that have an impact on his life. “I haven’t dealt with all the issues.” In any case, the presumption of innocence applies until the final verdict is reached.