One of the most prominent figures in the far-right Alternative for Germany party arrived in court Thursday 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 Alternative for Germany, or AfD, in the eastern state of Thuringia and a powerful figure on the party’s hard right.
They say that Höcke said “Everything for ...” and encouraged the audience to shout “Germany!” 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 remembers its past.