# First fatality caused by Germany's version of Sovereing Citizen

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-fatality-caused-by-germanys-version-of-sovereing-citizen/769111>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 20, 2016, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-fatality-caused-by-germanys-version-of-sovereing-citizen/769111 "2016-10-20T09:05:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2016, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-fatality-caused-by-germanys-version-of-sovereing-citizen/769111/1 "2016-10-20T09:05:50Z")

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> **[Police: Bavarian officer dies of injuries – DW – 10/20/2016](https://www.dw.com/en/bavarian-policeman-dies-after-battle-with-far-right-gunman/a-36096814)**
>
> A German policeman has succumbed to injuries sustained in a gun battle on Wednesday with an alleged far-right extremist. The shooting happened when officers attempted to confiscate firearms from a local man.

Germany’s _Reichsbürger_ are not a coherent movement - there are several competing Reich governments each issuing their own ID cards, driving licenses etc; some say the legitimate German state ended in 1918, most say it ended in 1945, some say it ended in 1990 with reunification and some say the state is a corporation they refuse to do business with - sound familiar?

What the fringe on flags is to sovereign citizens, is different numbers or feathers on the German armorial eagle on official documents to _Reichsbürger_.

They have been treated as a nuisance before but that’s going to change. A dead cop is a _big deal_ in Germany (see the graph on page 4 of [this PDF](http://schusswaffeneinsatz.de/Statistiken_files/Statistiken.pdf) - red bars are police officers killed by criminals, blue bars are people killed by police officers, the statistics for 2016 on that graph are obviously out of date.)

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**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2016, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-fatality-caused-by-germanys-version-of-sovereing-citizen/769111/2 "2016-10-20T09:34:12Z")

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Up until a few months ago, I didn’t even know we _had_ our own version of sovereign citizens; then I learned that some people apparently believe that the current Bundesrepublik is a corporation, which is proven by the fact that it issues the Personalausweis—the German identity card, which can be understood to mean ‘employee ID’, since ‘Personal’ has the double meaning of ‘body of employees’ and ‘relating to a person’. So that proves it—we’re all just the employees of Angela Merkel! :smack:

I’d mostly viewed them as an object of (well-deserved) ridicule, but that such delusions can thrive to the point where they actually claim a life takes the fun out of that a bit.