The German far-right Björn Höcke, one of the most extremist figures in his party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), and leader of the party in the state of Thuringia, has been on trial since this Thursday for having used a Nazi slogan in two speeches. The process takes place four and a half months before the regional elections in this land of the former communist GDR, where Höcke and his people lead the voting intention polls with 30%.
Four hearings are scheduled until May 14; In this Thursday Höcke did not speak, and his lawyers said that he will do so in next Tuesday. The trial is being held in a court in Halle, in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, because it was in a nearby city, Merseburg, where Höcke first spoke the words during an election rally at the end of May 2021. “All for our homeland, everything for Saxony-Anhalt, everything for Germany,” Höcke said. All for Germany was the motto of the SA (Sturmabteilung, assault section), a paramilitary group of the Nazi party that played a key role in Adolf Hitler's conquest of power.
Björn Höcke, 52, a history teacher at a high school for fifteen years, has claimed not to know that reference to the phrase. Last December, at an AfD meeting in Gera, a city in Thuringia, he evoked the phrase although without saying it. He said: “Everything for…” and encouraged the attendees to continue, as they did shouting: “…Germany.” German law prohibits the use of Nazi slogans or the public display of symbols of the Third Reich, and punishes this crime with up to three years in prison.
The Halle judges will also investigate another verbal provocation by the former professor. In January 2017, Björn Höcke described the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame” during a speech in Dresden, the capital of the land of Saxony, which led the party itself to evaluate his expulsion. However, a year later, the AfD refused to expel him from its ranks. The Thuringian AfD is one of three regional branches of the party that are under official surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) as a far-right extremist group.
