"Everything for G******": On the speech trial of Björn Höcke, whom German prosecutors accuse of speaking 3 forbidden words in 2021 & repeating 2 of them in 2023. He faces up to 3 years in prison.

Grab from a video of Björn Höcke’s 2021 speech in Merseburg, for which he is now facing criminal charges.

Today, the leader of the Alternative für Deutschland faction in the Thuringian state parliament, Björn Höcke, appeared before the district court in Halle for the first day of his long-awaited speech trial. He stands accused of having used a forbidden Nazi slogan favoured by the Sturmabteilung at a political rally in Merseburg on 29 May 2021. Höcke pleads that he used the three-word phrase in a moment of spontaneous elaboration at the end of his speech, without knowing its National Socialist associations. Out of an abundance of caution, I won’t quote the phrase here, even in translation, but I’ll provide it in context below; it begins with the words “Everything for” (“Alles für”) and concludes with the name of the Federal Republic. As slogans go, it is so seemingly banal that before the trial many Germans would have been surprised to know it had any Nazi associations at all.

For the moment, not much has happened. Höcke’s lawyers filed a variety of requests, among them that the Federal Constitutional Court answer a question surrounding the court’s jurisdiction. In consequence, it’s unclear whether the trial will continue as scheduled next week or whether it will have to be substantially delayed. The state prosecutor’s position is that Höcke’s background as a history teacher makes his claims of ignorance implausible. The prosecutors’ office have also added an additional charge for Höcke’s defiance at a rally in Gera last December, where he shouted the first two words of the slogan at the crowd, and invited them to supply the last one. I fear that this was a grave mistake, because as we will see, the original case against Höcke is laughably weak.

If found guilty, Höcke could be fined or sentenced to prison for up to three years. It is also conceivable that his right to vote and run for office could be suspended. Whatever you think of Höcke or his politics, the political dimensions of this trial are undeniable, as it is occurring mere months ahead of the Thuringian state elections, and as Alternative für Deutschland commands a solid plurality of polling numbers in that state.

This morning, the New York Times ran a major article Höcke’s trial, which predictably repeats many of the standard media theses about the case:

AfD leaders like Mr. Höcke argue that they have become victims of state institutions abusing their power to silence them. He recently published comments on social media in English that attracted the interest of Elon Musk, who asked why the slogan he used was illegal.

“Because every patriot in Germany is defamed as a Nazi, as Germany has legal texts in its criminal code not found in any other democracy,” he wrote in response. “These aim to prevent Germany from finding itself again.”

A skilled orator, Mr. Höcke has often tried to reintroduce words and slogans associated with the Third Reich, in what analysts describe as a twofold strategy.

“It’s not random – it’s well chosen,” said Johannes Hillje, a German political scientist who studies the AfD.

Such terms can serve as a kind of dog whistle to more extreme right-wing supporters, he said. At the same time, Mr. Höcke chooses slogans that seem relatively banal.

… Mr. Hillje said … the effect is to make state institutions seem biased against the AfD because it is an anti-establishment force.

“It allows him to play the victim, and this works well for him and for his supporters, because they also feel like victims,” he said.

That Höcke deliberately used the SA slogan as a subtle enticement to the extreme right is more than doubtful; that he also did so in hopes that he would be prosecuted and profit politically from his victimisation is so ridiculous, I can’t imagine that even Hillje really believes this. This obnoxious thesis nevertheless recurs whenever the German press report on the harassment of AfD politicians; it is somehow their fault, because they are held to benefit from it.

Der Spiegel, always a source of unintentional amusement, ran a headline today mocking Höcke as a “history teacher with no knowledge of history.” “He claims not to know it was an SA slogan,” they report, “but there are doubts about this.” Alas, the very same news magazine last September accidentally used the forbidden phrase to headline an approving article on Olaf Scholz’s proposed “Germany Pact.” They rapidly changed the headline, appending this brief and embarrassing correction to the bottom:

An earlier version of the article was headed with a line that was used by the SA as a slogan. This was not intended by the author and editors and has now been changed.

Höcke uttered the forbidden phrase at an election rally in Sachsen-Anhalt; the event was titled “Everything for our homeland” (“Alles für unsere Heimat”). That is to say, the theme already contained the first two words of Höcke’s three-word offence. He elaborated on this expression as follows¹:

Everything for our homeland ... what a great title, which I can affirm with fervour. I say with conviction: Yes, everything for our homeland, everything for Sachsen-Anhalt, everything for Germany. Let’s take a big step towards a better future together in Sachsen-Anhalt ... for Sachsen-Anhalt, but ultimately also for Germany. Dear friends, everything is possible if you make the AfD the strongest force on 6 June!

1. To the constitutional protectors: I distance myself from and utterly reject all National Socialist insignia and slogans. This is a quotation of another man’s words, nothing more.