The German Coup Plot: The Patriotische Union Case

The Case at a Glance

On December 7, 2022, German police launched one of the largest coordinated raid operations in the country's recent history. In a single day, officers searched more than 130 properties across 11 of Germany's 16 federal states, as well as in Austria. Twenty-five people were arrested the same day.

Behind the operation was a prosecution service that believed it had uncovered an organized group with plans to violently overthrow the German constitutional order. The group operated under the name Patriotische Union — Patriotic Union in English — and was linked to the controversial Reichsbürger movement.

The case combined a distinctive mix of historical self-perception, military-style structures, and political extremism, sending shockwaves through German society and well beyond its borders.

The Alleged Crime

According to prosecutors, the group's ambitions extended far beyond political opposition. The alleged goal was to storm the Bundestag — Germany's federal parliament — by force, and then install an entirely new state structure in place of the existing constitutional order.

Charges against group members include high treason as well as participation in or support of a terrorist organization.

The central figure in the case is Heinrich XIII. Prinz Reuß, a nobleman from the historic House of Reuss. His name has become synonymous with the case in the public consciousness. Among the other publicly named suspects is Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a former politician for the AfD party and a former judge associated with the Bundestag.

The Reichsbürger movement, to which the group is linked, rejects the validity of the German state in its current form and does not recognize the legal and institutional authority of the Federal Republic. It is an ideological framework that German security services have monitored with growing concern for a number of years.

The Investigation

The coordinated raid on December 7, 2022, was the culmination of an investigation that — in both scale and complexity — required police and prosecutors to work across several German federal states, as well as with international partners in Austria. Searching more than 130 properties in a single day represented a logistically extraordinary undertaking.

As BBC reported shortly after the arrests, the case attracted particular attention because it involved individuals with backgrounds in established public institutions, including the judiciary and the parliamentary system. This raised questions about how deeply Reichsbürger ideology had taken hold within German society.

Formal charges were brought by Germany's federal prosecution service (Generalbundesanwalt), and the case was distributed across three separate courts: the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main, the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart, and the Oberlandesgericht München.

Trial and Verdicts

Proceedings formally got underway from April 2024, when the first trials began at the designated courts. As Deutsche Welle noted at the time, Germany had not seen prosecutions of this nature and on a comparable scale since the post-war era.

A separate set of proceedings involving nine defendants began in May 2024, according to Reuters, illustrating that the many accused are being tried in separate proceedings rather than a single unified trial.

On March 6, 2025, five group members are reported to have received prison sentences. The specific court is not identified in available sources, and the full context of this partial verdict cannot be verified across all source materials. As of the most recently available reporting, no final verdict in the main case — including the case against Heinrich XIII. Prinz Reuß — has been handed down.

The Case Today

The Patriotische Union case remains an active chapter in German legal history. The three separate proceedings at the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart, and München are running in parallel and are expected to continue for a considerable period, given the complexity of the case and the number of defendants spread across the proceedings.

The case has had a noticeable impact on the German political debate around the Reichsbürger movement and whether existing laws are sufficient to handle organized internal threats to the constitutional order. It has also raised questions about security vetting procedures for individuals in public office and institutions.

This page will be updated as verified verdicts and court decisions become available.