In Germany, leader of far-right AfD party fined for Nazi slogan

Björn Höcke was fined 13,000 euros for using the National Socialist slogan “Alles für Deutschland” (“All for Germany”) during a rally.

German justice on Tuesday May 14 sentenced Björn Höcke, one of the most radical figures of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, to a fine of 13,000 euros for using a Nazi slogan. The prosecution had requested a six-month suspended prison sentence against Björn Höcke, tried in Halle for having deliberately used the National Socialist slogan “Alles für Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”), during an election rally in Merseburg in 2021.

“Everything for Germany” was a motto used by the SA, a paramilitary formation of the Nazi Party which played an essential role in Adolf Hitler’s conquest of power. In Germany, the law strictly prohibits the use of Nazi slogans or the exhibition of symbols of the Third Reich. A former high school history teacher, Björn Höcke, 52, said he was unaware that this phrase was a Nazi slogan. But according to Judge Jan Stegel, he knew it perfectly well.

Björn Höcke is a “eloquent and intelligent man”who studied history and “knows what he says”, said Jan Stengel. He recalled that other members of the AfD had already been in the crosshairs of the justice system in previous years because of the slogan “Everything for Germany”, particularly on election posters. The court assumes that this far-right figure was aware of this.

Currently leader of the AfD in Thuringia, in the east of the country, Björn Höcke dreams of coming to power after the elections scheduled for September in this regional state of the former GDR. His conviction to a fine does not endanger his political projects: it is only if he had been sentenced to a prison sentence of at least six months that the court could have withdrawn his right to vote and the possibility of ‘be elected.

This trial comes at a time when the AfD is facing several scandals which are eroding its popularity before the European elections on June 9. Created in 2013, this populist and anti-migrant party had the wind in its sails in the polls until the beginning of the year and hoped to triumph in this election as well as in three regional elections in September in the east of the country, considered to be his stronghold.

But in mid-January, the participation of certain members of the AfD in a meeting of the ultra-right to discuss a plan for the mass expulsion of foreigners or people of foreign origin from Germany shocked the country. Then in April, an investigation was opened for suspicion of Russian and Chinese financing against its head of list in the European election, MEP Maximilian Krah.