Reich Citizenship?

The German news magazine Focus brought this up this morning.....talking over the belief of some in Germany that has gone to the dark days with what some Germans now recognize as "Reich Citizenship".

What is "Reich Citizenship"?  Well.....around three years into the Nazi era (Sep 1935) of the German government....a law came out to define your new rights....it probably lessen your rights in various ways, but it was made to sound better and more accepting by the public. If you were a Jew, you lost all values of citizenship by this law.

The belief at the time was that the Reich Citizenship law would help to ensure a harmonious society where things would be happy, pleasant and working in a organized fashion with one another.  It assumed that everyone felt the same way.....which was the bitter harsh reality to the law.

So here in 2015, as you read through the Focus piece of this morning.....there are a small number of Germans who now perceive their lives to be in conflict with a new Reich Citizenship era.  One might suggest that it's the right-wing type individuals who feel this way.

The simple acts of disobedience?  It's humorous in a way.....these are people who are turning their license plates upside down.....refusing to show identity cards when requested by the police....and showing doubt in German officials carrying out their duty (mostly cops now but apparently expanding out).

All of this leads to a growing movement where people doubt the German state, the Basic Law (the Constitution), and the leadership that was put into place by the voting apparatus.

You can imagine a meeting where some policeman has to get to the bottom of some incident, and some Reich Citizen-believer won't cooperate.  This leads to conversation with intensity.  The cop just wants the facts....the Reich Citizen doesn't trust the cop or the badge on the cop.  In the US, the cop would haul the guy off to some jail and let them simmer until they cooperate.  The German cop doesn't really want to accomplish that....it requires more paperwork and increases the friction at the scene to the ninth degree.  The German cop just wants some basic information and perform the task at hand.

Where does this go?  2016 is an election year for five German states (three in mid-March and two toward the end of the year).  It promises to be a very frictional and harsh period for the Berlin collation of the CDU/CSU and SPD.

This small group of Reich Citizenship talkers will expand out and the cops will start to talk of continuing problems when doing their duty.  Non-cooperation will add stress onto the simplistic job of the nation's police and authorities.  At some point, some German with a sense of humor....will probably make up a Micky Mouse-like ID with the ID name of "Number 9" (9 as in the German word of "No") and it'll probably start to be used whenever the cops ask for an ID.

In a way, we've simple gone to the next level of chaos and anarchy.