A German court on Thursday convicted one of the country’s most controversial far-right politicians, Bjoern Hoecke, for deliberately using a banned Nazi slogan at a rally.
The court fined Hoecke, 52, from the far-right AfD party, 13,000 euros ($14,000) for using the phrase “Alles fuer Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”) during a 2021 campaign rally.
Once a motto of the so-called Sturmabteilung paramilitary group, which played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the phrase is illegal in modern Germany, along with the Nazi salute and other slogans and symbols from that era.
The former high school history teacher claimed he had no knowledge that the phrase had been used by the Nazis, telling the court he was “completely innocent”.
Hoecke said he thought the phrase was an “everyday proverb.”
But prosecutors argued that Hoecke used the phrase with full knowledge of its “origin and meaning.”
They asked for a six-month suspended sentence, plus two years’ probation, and a payment of €10,000 to a charitable organization.
Hoecke, the AfD leader in Thuringia, aims to become Germany’s first far-right prime minister when the state holds regional elections in September.
With the court ordering only a fine rather than a prison sentence, the verdict is not thought to threaten his candidacy in the elections.
– AfD scandals –
The trial is one of several controversies facing the AfD ahead of European Parliament elections in June and regional elections in the autumn in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony.
Founded in 2013, the anti-Islam and anti-immigration AfD saw a surge in popularity last year – its 10th anniversary – riding on concerns about rising migration, high inflation and a struggling economy.
But its support has wavered since the start of 2024 as it faces scandals that include allegations that senior party members were paid to air pro-Russian views on a Moscow-funded news website.
Considered an extremist by German intelligence services, Hoecke is one of the AfD’s most controversial personalities.
He called Berlin’s Holocaust monument a “memorial of shame” and called for a “180-degree shift” in the country’s memory culture.
Hoecke was convicted of using the banned slogan at an election rally in Merseburg in the state of Saxony-Anhalt ahead of Germany’s 2021 federal election.
He was also due to stand trial on a second charge of shouting “All for…” and inciting the public to respond “Germany” at an AfD meeting in Thuringia in December.
However, the court decided to separate the case from the second indictment, announced earlier this month, because the defense did not have enough time to prepare.
Prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen on Friday underlined the reach of Hoecke’s statement, saying that a video of it had been clicked 21,000 times on the AfD Sachsen-Anhalt Facebook page alone.
Hoecke’s defense, Philip Mueller, argued that the rally was an “insignificant campaign event” and that the offensive statement was only made public at trial.
Germany’s internal security agency has labeled the AfD in Thuringia as a “confirmed” extremist organization, along with the party’s regional branches in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
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