Key facts
- Fitzek and three men identified as Benjamin M, Mathias B and Martin S face up to 10 years in prison.
- Prosecutors allege the group ran banking and insurance branches in Dresden, Ulm, Menden and Lutherstadt Wittenberg.
- The group is accused of issuing fake identity documents and its own currency through a registration office.
- Prosecutors allege organized forgery and tax evasion amounting to millions of euros.
- Fitzek denies committing a crime and his defense lawyers said he would make a detailed statement.
- Intelligence services believe some 26,000 people belong to Reichsbürger organizations in Germany.
Peter Fitzek, who calls himself Peter the First, went on trial in Düsseldorf on November 6, 2026, accused of leading a criminal organization alongside three other men described as his senior subjects. The defendants, identified as Fitzek, Benjamin M, Mathias B and Martin S, face up to 10 years in prison. Fitzek denies committing a crime, and his defense lawyers announced he would make a detailed statement.
Prosecutors accuse the group of founding the Kingdom of Germany, or KRD, to replace the system of the Federal Republic of Germany. They allege the organization operated a banking and insurance system with branches in Dresden, Ulm, Menden and Lutherstadt Wittenberg, as well as a registration office that issued fake identity documents and its own currency. Further charges include organized forgery and tax evasion amounting to millions of euros.
In the five years to 2025, the KRD is alleged to have taken in about €10 million through unauthorized banking and insurance transactions, donations, gifts and fee-based seminars. Prosecutors say the revenues were not declared to tax authorities and that no income tax or social security contributions were paid on behalf of employees. The KRD is also accused of recruiting companies by promising they could operate free of tax and duties.
Fitzek, a former chef and karate instructor, declared himself supreme sovereign of the kingdom in 2012 and had himself crowned in ermine robes with a medieval sword. He began buying land and property across the country, and with around 6,000 members the KRD became the largest Reichsbürger and self-governance group in Germany. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt banned the KRD in 2025, and Fitzek and the other three suspects were taken into custody.
Reichsbürger are defined by German intelligence agencies as conspiracy theorists who reject the existence and legitimacy of the post-war German state. Intelligence services believe some 26,000 people are part of Reichsbürger organizations in Germany, and say a small minority are right-wing extremists and potentially violent. In a 2022 BBC interview, Fitzek denied having any violent intentions but called the German state destructive and sick.
In a separate case in 2022, dozens of people, many of them Reichsbürger, were arrested for plotting to overthrow the German government in Berlin. They were accused of planning a violent coup that included kidnapping the health minister to create civil war conditions. Five people were jailed last year over that plot.