German far-Right party leader stands trial over alleged use of Nazi slogan
One of the most prominent
gures in the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party went on trial on Thursday on charges of using a Nazi slogan, months before a regional election in which he plans to run to become his State’s Governor.
Björn Höcke, 52, leader of the AfD regional branch in the eastern State of Thuringia had become a powerful gure on the party’s hard Right.
While never formally a national leader of AfD, the former history teacher has been consistently in¥uential as the 11-year-old party steadily headed further Right and ousted several comparatively moderate leaders.
His was charged with using symbols of unconstitutional organisations. He stood accused of ending a speech in nearby Merseburg in May 2021 with the words “Everything for Germany!” Prosecutors contended that he was aware of the origin of the phrase as a slogan of the Nazi SA stormtroopers, but Mr. Höcke argued that it is an “everyday saying.” Using symbols of unconstitutional organisations can carry a ne or a prison sentence of up to three years. Four court sessions have been scheduled through May 14.
Demonstrators gathered outside the court building before the trial opened, with banners including “Björn Höcke is a Nazi” and “Stop AfD!” About 570 protesters turned out, according to police.
‘Was not aware’
Mr. Höcke insisted in a debate with a conservative rival last week that he wasn’t aware “Everything for Germany!” was a Nazi slogan and claimed that many others have used it. “Everyone out there knows it’s an everyday saying,” he said on Welt television.
Mr. Höcke has led AfD’s regional branch in Thuringia since 2013, the year the party was founded, and its group in the State legislature in Erfurt since it rst won seats there in 2014.
He once called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin a “monument of shame” and called for Germany to perform a “180-degree turn” in how it remembers its past. A party tribunal in 2018 rejected a bid to have him expelled.
Mr. Höcke’s regional branch of AfD is now one of three that the domestic intelligence agency has under o©cial surveillance as a “proven Right-wing extremist” group.
Wolfgang Schroeder, a political science professor at the Berlin Social Science Center, said Mr. Höcke has become an increasingly important gure in AfD and the front man of a “radicalisation project” in the party. He said that people vote for the party “in part out of protest, in part out of conviction.”
AfD is particularly strong in the formerly Communist east and is in
rst place in polls in Thuringia before a State election on September 1, with recent surveys showing support of upto 31%.
It’s unlikely that any other party will agree to work with Mr. Höcke and put him in the Governor’s of
ce, but AfD’s strength has made forming governing coalitions in the State enormously complicated.
Mr. Höcke also faces a second trial, for which dates haven’t yet been set, on charges of incitement related to a 2022 post on Telegram about a crime in the western city of Ludwigshafen.