The Kingdom of Germany has fallen

What German monarchists are up to these days

The flag of the Kingdom of Germany (KRD) movement.

‘King of Germany arrested’ is a headline you don’t read every day. It made the rounds on the German news cycle earlier this week when a man called Peter Fitzek was apprehended by police.

Fitzek, or ‘King Peter I’, as he calls himself, is the head of the ‘Kingdom of Germany’, the largest of a number of groups that don’t accept the legitimacy of the current German state and want to replace it with their own. Monarchism may not be widespread in Germany, but the idea certainly has a dedicated following.

Police came down hard on Fitzek’s realm in coordinated morning raids on Tuesday. Over 800 police officers stormed and searched properties in seven German states, leading to the arrest of ‘King Peter’ and three other people deemed to be the ringleaders of the group, which is estimated to be 1,000 members strong (though Fitzek claims it’s 6,000 nationally).

What Fitzek offered his followers was to join his parallel state, a fantasy kingdom he called ‘Königreich Deutschland’ (KRD). A trained chef and karate instructor, to his ‘subjects’, he was ‘King Peter I’ or ‘Peter, Son of Man’. The 59-year-old, who wears what’s left of his hair in a ponytail, appears to have had a ‘Guru-like’ appeal, able to captivate people, as one ex-member told the German press.