One of the most prominent figures in the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party has arrived in court for his trial on charges of using a Nazi slogan, months before a regional election in which he is running to become his state’s governor.
Björn Höcke, 52, is the leader of the regional branch of the AfD in the eastern state of Thuringia and a powerful figure on the party’s hard right.
While never formally a national leader of AfD, the former history teacher has been influential as the 11-year-old party has steadily headed further right and ousted several comparatively moderate leaders.
At the trial at the state court in Halle, Höcke is charged with using symbols of unconstitutional organisations. He is accused of ending a speech in nearby Merseburg in May 2021 with the words: “Everything for Germany!”
Prosecutors contend he was aware of the origin of the phrase as a slogan of the Nazis’ SA stormtroopers. Using symbols of unconstitutional organisations can carry a fine or a prison sentence of up to three years.
Höcke insisted in a debate with a conservative rival last week that he was unaware it was a Nazi slogan and claimed many others had used it. “Everyone out there knows it’s an everyday saying,” he said.
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Four court sessions have been scheduled up until 14 May.
Demonstrators gathered outside the court before the trial opened on Thursday, with banners including “Björn Höcke is a Nazi” and “Stop AfD!” About 570 protesters turned out, according to police.
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 first 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 remembered its past. A party tribunal in 2018 rejected an attempt to have him expelled.
Höcke’s regional branch of AfD is one of three that the domestic intelligence agency has under official surveillance as a “proven rightwing extremist” group.
Wolfgang Schroeder, a political science professor at the Berlin Social Science Center, said Höcke had become an increasingly important figure in the AfD and the frontman of a “radicalisation project” in the party. He said people voted for the party “in part out of protest, in part out of conviction”.
The AfD is particularly strong in the formerly communist east and is in first place in polls in Thuringia ahead of a state election on 1 September, with recent surveys showing support of 29-31%.
It is unlikely that any other party will agree to work with Höcke and put him in the governor’s office, but the AfD’s strength has made forming governing coalitions in the state enormously complicated.