Concerning the legality of destroying the RFID chip: The article mentions that one person was arrested in Frankfurt airport when officials detected that he had

Concerning the legality of destroying the RFID chip: The article mentions that one person was arrested in Frankfurt airport when officials detected that he had microwaved his passport (or ID card), and that he would possibly be facing jail time for tampering with official travel documents. In my legal opinion, while your passport is property of the Federal Republic of Germany and thus not yours to do with as you please, it is a big difference if you willingly try to alter the information on the passport, or if you destroy part of the digital information in the passport. While the former might be considered a crime it is hard to imagine that the latter would be punishable by more than a small fine.