WEBVTT - Please Rise for the King of Germany 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.760 Hi, I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. It's time 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:06.920 for another feature in this week's edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Well, 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.520 you've probably never heard of Peter Fitzick, but he's the 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:15.000 self proclaimed wait for it, King of Germany, and like 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.439 other monarchs, Peter tends to be identified by his first name, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.759 and that's right, Jason. King Peter's subjects are adherents of 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:26.800 the Reichberger movement, whose members believed Germany doesn't exist. Reichbergers 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.920 print their own passports, they often refused to pay taxes, 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.600 and they cloud courts with paperwork along the same lines 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.240 as the US Sovereign Citizen movement. While King Peter's dominion 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.199 boast more than thirt hundred subjects who live in a 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.640 sprawling compound in Wittenburg that's sixty miles southwest of Berlin. 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.560 They also have their own health care system and currency. 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.600 And Jason money is exactly where things kind of start 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.480 to get really interesting here because King Peter, well, he 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.360 has also been accused of embezzling more than one point 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.880 three million euros from some once loyal subjects. It's a 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:06.479 great story. Please rise for the King of Germany. Peter 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.920 Fitzek was a leading light in the Reichsburger movement, which 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.720 denies Germany's very existence. He founded a kingdom and opened 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.760 a bank. Then the German government started asking where the 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:21.560 money went. By David Govie, Herbert Peter Fitzek is the 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.160 King of Germany at fifty four. He has the ponytail 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.880 and square jaw of an eighties movie terrorist, or perhaps 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.120 a karate instructor, which in fact he was before ascending 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.360 to the throne. Like other monarchs, Peter tends to be 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:40.120 identified by his first name. His dominion offers its own passport, currency, 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.959 and health care plan, and it boasts more than thirteen 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.080 hundred subjects, some of whom live in a sprawling compound 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.520 in Wittenburg, sixty miles southwest of Berlin. Most important, he 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:55.160 rose alongside a woman tabloids called his Queen, Annette Ulmann, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.360 a model and waitress who was brunette and beautiful and 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.960 wore lavender silk shirts to his court appearances. When he 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.240 meets journalists, Peter brings a binder of legal documents to 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.320 support his claim to the throne. It's smaller than the 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.480 meter high stack he typically lugs to court. Where he's 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.600 found himself for a violation such as speeding and the 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:19.280 illegal possession of nun chucks. He records his conversations with reporters, 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.480 a habit developed after a comedy troupe catfished him into 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.760 a confrontation in the lobby of a Frankfurt hotel. He 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.840 ended up in a fistfight before stunned tourists. His microphone 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.200 has a sticker proclaiming that it's owned by one of 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.880 his followers, placed there so German tax authorities wouldn't seize 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.840 it to compensate some one's loyal subjects, from whom he 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.520 was accused of embezzling more than one point three million 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:46.280 euros about one point four million dollars. Presented with a recorder, 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.000 Peter talks and talks. He talks about how he healed 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.359 an ext girlfriend who was abused as a child by 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.680 Satanists using only his hands, About how a cabal of 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:01.840 shadowy elites, including Rockefellers and Orthodox Jews spread COVID nineteen 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.360 to boost drug profits and compel Germans to accept implanted 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.080 biosensor chips, how a sniper once shot his car on 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.320 the Autobahn, but divine intervention caused the bullet to only 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.480 nick the windshield. He knows what you're thinking, but a 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:17.919 policeman friend told him there's no way it was a rock. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.480 King Peter's subjects are adherents of the Reichsburger movement, whose 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.440 members believe Germany doesn't exist. The Republic, they contend, is 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.120 a limited liability company controlled by the Allied victors of 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.639 World War Two, and according to the more anti semitic 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:39.440 the Rothschild Family, Reichsburgers print their own passports, often refused 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.280 to pay taxes, and clog courts with paperwork, along the 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.840 same lines as the US Sovereign Citizen Movement, and like 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.360 their other American ken Q and on the far right 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.760 conspiracy theory alleging a deep state plot against Donald Trump, 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:58.440 their products of the digital age of Unreason. Reichsburgers are 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.880 indoctrinated by low budget you tube talk shows hosted by 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.760 the likes of Jo Conrad, who says Freemasons, lizard people, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:11.160 and child murdering cults have overrun Germany. Converts protest outside 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.560 the Reichstag, which some say is guarded by a laser canon. 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:20.320 For fun, they stream Reichsburger hip hop in Germany's domestic 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:25.360 intelligence agency identified about nineteen thousand Reichsburger's, nearly double its 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.600 estimate of two years earlier. The true number, officials say 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.480 is likely far greater. Peter, for all his troubles, is 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.880 a genial leader. His optimism follows from an expedient logic. 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.880 Every legal wind proves the soundness of his arguments, and 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.560 every loss proves the corruption of the German system. He's 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.039 so enjoying himself that you don't want to spoil the 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.520 fund by raising the matter of those euros. The German 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.240 government was trying to find it, imprisoned him and confiscated 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:57.360 his cash, his property, even his piano. He's fought in 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.320 the courts, in the media, and in police cust to 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.480 defend his treasure and to keep the government from asking 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:08.040 more questions. In two thousand eight, as economic crisis swept 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:12.120 across Europe, Peter knew his moment had arrived. Since before 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.160 German reunification, he'd been a tottle, a dept a fair saga, 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.479 a loser. Born in East Germany in ninety five, he 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.360 was a friendless, introvert with an alcoholic father and an 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.000 overbearing mother who made him clean his plate to the 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.279 point of vomiting. Peter wanted to become a teacher, but 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.039 his grades were too poor, so he worked as a cook. 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.920 Then he married and had two children, started teaching karate 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:40.880 and became a video store clerk. In An investor from 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.279 near Stuttgart in the prosperous West persuaded Peter to co 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.120 found a slot machine business with him. It was his 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.119 big break until it wasn't. His partner used his knowledge 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.920 of the German legal system to take the company. Peter 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.799 was just another Aussie, poor and unsophisticated. After nearly fifty 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.960 years of communist rule Outmaneu heard by a slick Vessey, 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.479 he and his wife split up the following year. Adrift 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.160 in the early two thousands, Peter began reading. He devoured 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.039 esoteric texts and dabbled in black magic, claiming visions of 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.839 angels and demons. He also poured over law books and 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.560 developed what some attorneys described as an astonishingly vast, if 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.359 not particularly cogent, knowledge of the legal system. And he 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.400 found a new belief that helped him make sense of 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:31.039 his life's failures. Germany wasn't a legitimate country. The first 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.240 Reichsburger citizen of the Reich was Wolfgang Abel, an East 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.039 German transit worker. In nineteen eighty five, he notified the U. 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.080 S Embassy and his local town hall that a US 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:47.040 diplomat named Mr. Kowalski had confided an explosive secret. Because 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.760 the Allies in Germany never signed a formal peace treaty 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.440 after World War Two, the German Constitution of nineteen nineteen 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.080 was still in effect. Abel declared himself Chancellor of the 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:00.479 True State and changed his answering machine message to announced 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.919 the new government. His activities show the signs of mental illness, 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.960 the Stasi concluded after surveilling him for years. When the 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:13.320 wall fell, Abel's delusions metastasized. The country's true borders were 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.040 those from n seven, encompassing half of present day Poland. 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.040 The German government was a corporation serving as a front 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.480 for Anglo American and yes, Jewish financial interests. It was 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:29.200 wild stuff, festering mainly on the political fringes. Then came 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.200 the Internet and later the financial crisis all over the country. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:37.160 Germans were angry about the economy, migration, and the European Union. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.720 As the Eurozone wobbled men, the majority of Reichsberger's are 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.640 Men over forty began popping up at a store in 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.480 downtown Wittenberg, where Peter had started selling esoteric books and 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.080 promoting his view that an alternate government was possible. He 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.600 offered membership cards for one twenty euros a year and 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.360 began accepting investments for what he called a savings account, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.640 acting at least sixty euros by the end of two 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.840 thousand eight. Court records show Peter also began exploring another 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.800 kind of magic Fiat currency, pitching a famously cash obsessination 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:16.720 his bright and colorful Ngelgeld or Angel money. He conveniently 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.360 pegged the notes to the Euro denominations included a seven, 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.320 a number he imbued with deep significance. There weren't many 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.280 ways to spend the money, but Peter, echoing goldbugs everywhere, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.480 says it had value as an inflation free store of 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:36.719 purchasing power. Now attracting cash and interest, Peter decided to 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:41.119 create Neu Deutsche Land or New Germany, a country primarily 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.120 of the mind and YouTube. You send your kids to 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.840 institutions that train them as slaves, Peter tells a group 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.560 of normal looking Germans in one video posted to his 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.920 country's channel. The systems that you use make you behave 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.720 like slaves, but you choose that. The group participates in 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.720 a few party tricks, including one in which four people 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.800 lift someone from a chair with their fingers. The ease 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.720 with which they performed the feat, Peter says, confirms the 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.959 existence of energy fields and the malleability of gravity. It's 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.840 actually timing, weight distribution and the surprising strength of the 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:19.840 human finger. Euros poured in. In two thousand nine, Peter 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.840 collected nearly forty thousand euros, a fifth of which he 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.920 put toward a dilapidated factory on the outskirts of Wittenburg. 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:28.760 The next year he took in more than one eighty 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.640 thousand euros Inn it was eight D fifty two thousand. 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.880 With his followers now numbering in the thousands, he took 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.280 out a six d and fifty thousand euro mortgage on 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.800 another old factory and set about renovating it, a project 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:44.880 he'd never complete. He paid workers an hourly rate of 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.440 four euros and four engle Geld, redeemable at the company's 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:53.120 sausage shop. In he acquired an even larger property, an 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:59.040 abandoned hospital that could someday house several thousand people. Peter's 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.920 followers were a mixed bunch, some loners and losers, but 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:07.000 also accomplished professionals, such as Harry Ziegenhagel, a lawyer who 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.840 was bored and looking for answers. When in February an 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.600 acquaintance sent him one of Peter's YouTube videos, zeken Haggle 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.720 was intrigued enough to plunk down fifty euros and drive 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.840 six hours for a two day personality development seminar in Wittenberg. 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.840 He found a movement that had grown to about thirty 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.600 five hundred followers, middle aged white collar men like himself, 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.480 but also single mothers, several black Germans, and a left 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.920 wing Berlin theater director. Some of them were living at 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.160 the first compound Peter had bought. He called it Rheinsdorf 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.440 after the surrounding neighborhood. Zeken Haggle came away from the 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.400 weekend so impressed that he sold his legal practice and 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.760 moved to the factory. As NEU deutsch Land's only lawyer, 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.920 he had uniquely useful skills, and when Peter's erratic behavior 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.880 compelled the top aid to quit, zegen Haggle became his 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.640 confidante and chauffeur. Day to day life as easy in 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.760 the early days at Rhinsdorff, which suited most residents just fine. 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.800 They were people who didn't find their way in society, 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.440 people with difficult childhoods, people who were extremely sensitive. Zegan 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.920 Hoggle says many saw the group as a replacement family. 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.920 With Peter presiding as father, there was a lot of hugging, 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.319 but as the population grew the environment became more structured. 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:29.200 Peter implemented a strict daily work schedule. Followers poured concrete, 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.320 repainted gray walls and optimistic orange, seated a vegetable garden, 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.080 and built a set for his YouTube videos. Citizens were 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.320 afraid to take smoke breaks because Peter disapproved of cigarettes. 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.839 Their leader was insulated from the discomforts of compound life. 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.600 When the boiler broke, he still had hot water for 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.280 his showers in the large apartment he lived in downtown. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.000 I got the impression, Zegan Hoggle says that it was 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:57.480 increasingly turning into a cult. As Peter's influence grew, he 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.960 developed a pattern of histrionics and violence. When he visited 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.199 a court house to contest several speeding tickets, he grabbed 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.600 a female clerk's arm roughly and fled the scene, later 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.839 returning with a white rose to ask forgiveness. The clerk declined. 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.000 Peter says he was attempting a citizen's arrest on a 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.880 corrupt official. He punched his son's teacher over a disagreement 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.680 about the school sexad classes. The curriculum, he says, included 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.040 a trash book written by an open Satanist, and in 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.720 twenty twelve, in front of shocked onlookers, Peter slapped his 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.960 adult daughter twice across the face. I was a little 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.600 unfairly hard on her, I have to admit, he says. 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.400 After that incident, segenhoggl realized it was time to go. 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.199 The lawyer's assertion that the group became cult like, Peter says, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.840 is the opinion of a single person to whom we 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:50.360 were happy to say good bye. Other followers began slipping away, too, 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:55.200 but YouTube provided a steady stream of replacements. Peter's videos 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:59.200 regularly garnered more than fifteen thousand views. They weren't viral, 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.880 but they didn't need to be. The site served them 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.480 to the exact slice of the population most likely to 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.520 pack up and move to Wittenburg, Germans with a taste 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.720 for baroque conspiracy theories. They were referred from videos featuring 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.480 other Reichsburger pitchman such as Konrad, who built a vast 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.160 online following and hawked them books about aliens, the dangers 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:23.520 of vaccination, and the special intellectual qualities of Germans. There 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.319 was also Jesse Marson, a car salesman who claimed to 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.760 be a victim of c I A mind control tests. 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.839 Marson founded Germania out of a castle he'd bought in Brandenburg, 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.800 selling nutritional supplements and thirty five euro Celtic druid I 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:41.080 D cards. Jurgen Elcessa, a far right journalist, ran a 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.880 monthly magazine with forty thousand subscribers and sold go Home 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.800 American and Freedom for Germany t shirts. Amid this ferment, 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.560 Peter's ambitions for Neu Deutschland grew grander. He wanted to 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.720 provoke the federal government, raise his profile and gain more followers. 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:03.679 It would take something audacious, it would take a kingdom. 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.280 On September sixteenth, twenty twelve, Peter stood in the back 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.160 of an event hall, fiddling with his fake ermine robe 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.800 as he waited to become the first royal crowned on 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.959 German soil since Wilhelm the Second in eighteen eighty eight. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.840 The moment has come to found the new state, said 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.880 Thomas Bach, the black caped master of ceremonies. Raise your 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.320 hearts as we await the sovereigns. He pounded the stage 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.520 with a staff. Also strach Zarathustra boomed from speakers as 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.240 Peter led a half dozen of his most loyal subjects 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.800 through a mob of flashing smartphones. Reading from an oversized scroll, 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.000 he declared a free home for the German people after 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.440 more than sixty years, to his six hundred new citizens. 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.480 The stunt worked. After Middel Deutschitzeitung reported on the coronation, 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:55.240 German journalists flocked to tiny Wittenberg. Weiss sent a video team. 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.560 Peter reveled in the attention. When the newspaper Develt asked 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.720 about his childhood, he boasted that he'd hit puberty at 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.320 age six. Had he been able to grow a beard? 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:09.840 The reporter asked, no, no. Peter replied that he gestured 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.920 to his crotch was basically working. He began driving his 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:18.360 kingdom financed BMW with a kingdom driver's license and Kingdom plates. 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.120 Police sided him for speeding seven times in five months. 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.160 As a sovereign, he claimed the rules of the road 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.920 no longer applied to him. He turned his savings accounts 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.760 into a more formal institution called Koniglica or Royal reichs Bunk, 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.240 which by thirteen had collected more than two point three 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:41.440 million euros from roughly five hundred investors. A health insurance 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.800 company and other side businesses he'd started were also raking 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:49.080 in cash. That April, though financial regulators obtained a search 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.960 warrant for the Kingdom's compounds on the grounds that Peter 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.560 was operating on illegal bank in his safe, they found 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.120 only several hundred euros. He responded to the authorities by 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.000 announcing plans to open an actual bank on a busy 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.640 street in Wittenberg, complete with marble floors, gold fixtures, and 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.480 promised returns as high as nine percent. When the government 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:13.240 banned Peter from accepting deposits, he held a ribbon cutting. Anyway, 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.080 a relentlessly polite bureaucrat showed up to hand him business 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.040 registration forms. It's so nice of them to bring it 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.200 to me personally, Peter said, to a TV crew. Then 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.680 he ripped up the papers and asked, does anyone have 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.680 a trash been? The official could only smile awkwardly as 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:35.000 customers raced in with their deposits. In May, the German 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.120 financial services regulator banned Peter's making activities and ordered him 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.720 to repay his customers the next year. With most deposits 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:47.360 still outstanding and complaints coming in, regulators hired bankruptcy lawyer 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.840 Stephan Oppermann to liquidate the bank's assets and recover more 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:55.560 than one point three million euros. Opperman was tall and humorless, 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:59.000 the suit and trench coat clad picture of German probity. 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.600 To Peter, it was another sign that Germany's government was 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.800 scared of him. He told depositors to be patient, that 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.560 they were participating in an ambitious statehood project. One of them, 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:14.160 Richard Gantz, a computer programmer, had invested his life savings 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.240 of four and thirty one thousand euros in the Kingdom. 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:19.959 When he begged for his money back, Peter explained that 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.520 liquidity was tight. He invited Ghants to relocate to the 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.160 Kingdom and enjoy free room and board. The exchange devolved 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.720 into an email flame war Richard, try not to think, 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:35.080 Peter wrote, the results are never satisfying. He dismissed another 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:39.480 angry creditor, a septagenarian doctor who deposited seventy tho euros, 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.240 by saying she wasn't clear in the head. In March, 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.879 police raided three of Peter's properties a feudal effort to 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.160 seize cash. Rumors spread that he had a bomb at 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.760 his bank, leading police to close the surrounding streets. It 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.679 turned out to be a dubious alternative fuel project that 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.639 fall with the authority is closing in. Peter met the 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.040 woman who would be dubbed his queen. Annette Ulman was 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.080 then a thirty year old model and aspiring actress who 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.119 had done some professional photo shoots and TV extra gigs. 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.080 She was attending a session of Peter's Power of Thought 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.640 seminar series based on a one sixteen year old four 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:22.640 DVD set that taught visualization techniques for losing weight, quitting drinking, 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:27.080 and recovering from breakups. As he spoke, they kept locking eyes. 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.480 Annette may have shared Peter's flair for self promotion. A 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.879 few years earlier, on a reality show, she demonstrated a 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.639 favorite butt exercise, which consisted of writhing on the floor. 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.560 Her life goal, she told her producer, was to become famous. 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.200 When the seminar was done, the two met and began dating. 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:51.120 The next month, Opperman and tactical police wearing balaclava's hit 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.439 the bank, hoping to seize its assets. Peter played the 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.960 piano in the lobby as officers swarmed in. Over the 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.760 next few days, Opperman's team on twenty safes, all of 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.080 them empty. He used suction cups to lift the marble 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:09.840 floor tiles. Nothing across the Kingdom's properties. The main items 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.400 of note were a priest's outfit and some VHS porn tapes. 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.720 Opperman soon concluded that Peter had spent much of the 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:21.160 money on travel, BMW's and real estate. The rest had vanished, 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.359 laundered through a network of companies, including the one that 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:28.240 ran the Compounds sausage stand. Some had gone to Poland, 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:33.520 where officials declined requests to freeze Peter's accounts. Peter's provocations 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.280 intensified yet again. For one stunt, he burst through construction 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:41.199 barriers at Wittenberg's famed Schlosskirka and posed for photos at 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:43.840 the same door where Martin Luther had started the Reformation. 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:49.000 Peter's own theses numbered seventy seven, including save the Midwives 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:53.159 number twenty Adhere to the Cosmic Order number twenty three, 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:58.840 and support free energy machines number seventy seven. In May, 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.640 Peter loo with Annette to Majorca, where she had once been, 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.479 to shoot a cringeworthy music video. The Kingdom's website posted 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.159 photos of Peter smiling and holding a boarding pass in 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.479 the name of Peter, the first King of Germany. He 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.480 claimed the trip proved the legitimacy of the Kingdom's passport, 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.160 though of course travel within the Shingen area doesn't require one. 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.240 Berlin had a problem on its hands, and it wasn't 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.800 just Peter. His segment of the Reichsburger movement at least 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.679 was pacifistic, and his most serious suspected crime was merely 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:36.960 scamming his followers. Others were becoming dangerous. In Brandenburg, the 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.240 state surrounding Berlin, officials arrived at work one morning to 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.320 find the fax machines toner cartridge empty and hundreds of 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.040 manifesto pages sprayed across the floor. Around the same time, 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.800 five thousand miles away, a Washington state agency was receiving 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.560 hundreds of filings alleging that German officials from Chancellor Angela 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.879 merkel On down were delinquent on debts ranging from twenty 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.919 seven thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars to five hundred 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:05.440 trillion dollars. Reichsberger trolls then used the filings to hire 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.560 collection agencies in Malta, which theoretically obligated their targets to 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.600 appear in Maltese court. When police attempted to crack down 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.159 on the movement, they were unprepared for the fury that 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:21.000 awaited them. In August twenty sixteen, Adrian Urzaka, a former 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.680 Mister Germany who had become a leading Reichsburger theorist, opened 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.520 fire on officers trying to evict him from state er 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.720 a nation that consisted of his house and back yard. 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:35.240 He wounded one before being shot and arrested himself. Two 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:39.440 months later, in Bavaria, one of Erzaka's proteges, Wolfgang Plan, 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.280 fired on police who had come to seize his cash 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.720 of thirty one guns. An officer died and two others 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.720 were wounded before Plan was arrested. He'd self radicalized while 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.800 watching thousands of hours of YouTube videos, including Peter's rants 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:59.119 ingelgeld Plan says in a jail house interview, seemingly about 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:03.000 to roll his eyes recalling Peter's currency, then he adds brightly, 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.920 it's okay, I like it. The police had an easier 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.199 time apprehending Peter. The same month as the raid on 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:14.120 State Or. They stormed Rhindsdorff and took him into custody. 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.240 The list of charges included operating an illegal bank and 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:22.080 embezzling funds. When the trial began on October, Annette was 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.320 in attendance, the King blew air kisses in her direction. 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.320 As the proceedings got under way, he repeatedly interrupted the judge, 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:34.840 shouting scandal and lies. The theatrics continued for months until 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:38.399 the gavel finally came down the following March. The judge 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:41.680 sentenced him to three years and eight months. The King 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:44.840 of New Germany was going to prison in the old one. 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:50.400 The police never found the money. Much of it had, 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:54.960 as Opperman surmised, slipped into other countries. The accounts in Poland, 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.600 a mysterious check for one million Hong Kong dollars roughly 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:03.720 a thousand dollars and land in Paraguay purchased ex followers 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:07.640 speculate because the country lacks an extradition treaty with Germany. 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.760 He was given control of Peter's properties and began liquidating them, 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:14.440 but the law decreed that since there wasn't enough cash 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.320 for all of the creditors, no one would get anything. 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:22.280 It's either all or nothing, Opperman says. Instead, the money 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:27.600 went toward the investigations costs. In May seventeen, after the trial, 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:30.919 police in riot gear evicted dozens of citizens from the 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.840 larger of the two Kingdom compounds. Peter's conviction had done 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:38.760 little to shake his follower's faith. Most simply stayed at Drainsdorf, 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:41.760 bunking four to a room while the new ownership worked 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:45.320 slowly toward evicting them. As they awaited their king's release, 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.000 they hung up dream catchers, talked about kem trails and 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:51.760 eight beats for dinner and vegan ice cream for dessert. 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:57.320 In prison, Peter meditated, exercised, and wrote two books, a 0:23:57.400 --> 0:24:01.440 magical autobiography and a treatise on the unification of spirituality 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.840 and science, an impressive output considering he spent barely a 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:10.000 year behind bars. In April, an appeals court overturned his conviction. 0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:13.600 Peter's deposit slips had read more like donation forms, the 0:24:13.640 --> 0:24:17.200 court ruled, and some depositors had testified they hadn't really 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.920 expected to get their money back. As Peter exited the courthouse, 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:24.760 his case formally suspended. Annette jumped into his arms, and 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:29.679 supporters cheered and handed him flowers. Safe again on sovereign soil, 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:33.280 he set about restoring order to the kingdom. He'd need 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:35.480 new schemes to get his message back in the news 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:42.119 and replenish the Royal Treasury. When I visit Wittenberg in September, 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:45.840 all is calm. Peter's domain, fenced off in a quiet, 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:49.479 leafy suburb, is easy to pick out. The Kingdom's flag. 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:53.760 A rising sun laid over the traditional German tricolor, flutters 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:57.000 from a poll. Peter is excited to show me around. 0:24:57.520 --> 0:25:00.000 We visit the main office, where his clerks are hunting 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.320 for revenue streams. They've increased the price of Neu deutsch 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:06.960