The Halle City Public Prosecutor’s Office indicted Bjorn Hocke, the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), for the use of Nazi vocabulary and symbols.
Although Hocke is only a party leader in the state of Thuringia, he is considered one of the most influential people within the neo-Nazi movement. Two years ago, during a speech at a rally in Merseburg, he called for “Everything for Germany,” a slogan that was representative of the Nazi militias known as the Sturmabteilung (SA).
Previously, he had also generated scandals with public speeches that minimized the Nazi crimes. On one occasion, for example, he came to describe the Monument to the Victims of the Holocaust as “a shame” for Germany.
Hocke was also the visible head of “the Wing,” an AfD sub-organization which was formally dissolved after it was defined as contrary to the German law. The accusation against Hocke arose from a complaint filed by Sebastian Riegel, the leader of the Green party in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) defines Thuringia’s AfD as a clearly far-right organization. The same occurs with other groups supported by Hocke, such as the Young Alternative (JA).
Monitored by the BfV since 2020, Hocke has called for the removal of articles criminalizing incitement to racial hatred and Holocaust denial from the German penal code. The Thuringia AfD leader has also appeared in acts of other far-right groups such as European Patriots against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA).
