Björn Höcke

Björn Höcke (born 1 April 1972) is a German politician and a member of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Along with Andreas Kalbitz, Höcke was the leader of the AfD's far-right Der Flügel faction, which the German government's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution declared a right-wing extremist organization.

Early life and education
Björn Höcke was born in Lünen, Westphalia. His grandparents were expelled Germans from East Prussia. He took his Abitur at the Rhein-Wied-Gymnasium, Neuwied, in 1991.

Höcke studied sport and history at University of Giessen and at University of Marburg before working as a teacher. He taught at the Rhenanus School, a comprehensive school in Bad Sooden-Allendorf.

Political career
Höcke was a short-time member of the Junge Union.

As one of the founders of AfD Thuringia, he became Member of the Landtag of Thuringia, the state assembly of the federal state of Thuringia in Germany during the 2014 Thuringian state election. Höcke is the speaker of the parliamentary group of the AfD and he is the spokesman of the Thuringia Regional Association (Landesverband) of his party. He is said to be part of the "national-conservative wing" of the AfD. His faction of the party is known as the Flügel (the Wing) and 40 percent of the AfD party members identify themselves with it.

In September 2019, Höcke threatened "massive consequences" to a ZDF journalist who refused to restart an interview after a series of difficult questions and after asking fellow party members whether various quotes are from his book or from Hitler's Mein Kampf.

During the 2019 Thuringian state election, the AfD under the leadership of Höcke more than doubled its vote share to 23%, overtaking the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to place second.

In 2021 Jörg Meuthen, moderate co-leader of AfD was trying to remove him from the party due to his racism, but failed. This led to Meuthen ultimately quitting himself in 2022.

In November 2021, Höcke's parliamentary immunity in the Landtag of Thuringia was cancelled. He was accused to have ended a speech in May with a phrase used by the SA whose use is illegal under insignia legislation. The phrase was "Alles für Deutschland" ("Everything for Germany"). In June 2023 Höcke was charged.

Political views
Höcke espouses far-right views. During Demonstrations in autumn of 2015, Höcke called for Germany to have "not only a thousand year past", but also "a thousand year future", he would go on to describe the period of the German Empire from 1871 to 1914, as the heyday for the German People.

Political scientists such as Gero Neugebauer and Hajo Funke have commented that Höcke's opinions are close to the National Democratic Party of Germany and consider his statements völkisch, racist and fascist. In September 2019, a German court ruled that describing Höcke as fascist was not libellous. However, a later court ruling in 2020 ruled against the FDP politician Sebastian Czaja for stating that the court ruling had classified Höcke as a fascist. He has participated in several rallies of the anti-Islam Pegida movement in the early 2020s.

Höcke has expressed public support for the far-right ecologist magazine Die Kehre (The Turning), which has been published since 2020 in an attempt to "reclaim" environmental conservation from the left.

Immigration policy
Regarding the European migrant crisis, Höcke opposes Germany's asylum policy, leading regular demonstrations in Erfurt against the federal government's asylum policy, which regularly attracted several thousand sympathizers. He opposes the euro, favoring a return to national currencies.

He is reported to have declared that if Europe keeps on taking in immigrants, the African "reproductive behavior" will not change. In 2017, Höcke stated "dear young African men: for you there is no future and no home in Germany and in Europe!"

Family policy
Höcke has called for more Prussian virtues and promotes natalist views, specifically the "three-child family as a political and social model." He opposes gender mainstreaming and demands an end of what he calls "social experiments" that undermine what he deems the "natural gender order."

Education policy
He opposes the mainstreaming of students with disabilities, calling for such students to go to separate schools, and opposes school sexual education, which he regards as "early sexualization of the students," and wants to "stop the dissolution of the natural polarity of the two sexes".

Ties to Neo-Nazis
Höcke has links with neo-Nazi circles in Germany. Höcke has written with Thorsten Heise, a leader of NPD. In 2015 Höcke was accused of having contributed to Heise's journal People in Motion (Volk in Bewegung) and The Reichsbote under a pseudonym ("Landolf Ladig"). Höcke denied having ever written for NPD papers, but refused to give a statutory declaration as demanded by the AfD Federal Executive Board.

In a 2014 email to party colleagues, Höcke advocated the abolition of section 86 of the German Criminal Code (which prohibits the spread of propaganda by unconstitutional organizations) and section 130 of the German Criminal Code (which criminalizes incitement to hatred towards other groups). This would also have legalized Holocaust denial, which is illegal in Germany.

Allegations of antisemitism
Höcke gave a speech in Dresden in January 2017, in which, referring to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin (the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), he stated that "we Germans are the only people in the world who have planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital" and suggested that Germans "need to make a 180 degree change in their commemoration policy".

The speech was widely criticized as antisemitic or neo-nazism, among others by Jewish leaders in Germany, and he was described by his party chairwoman, Frauke Petry, in response as a "burden to the party". As a result of his speech, the majority of leaders of the AfD asked in February 2017 that Björn Höcke be expelled from the party. In May 2018 an AfD tribunal ruled that Höcke was allowed to stay in the party.

After Höcke's "monument of shame" comment, the Center for Political Beauty, a Berlin-based art collective, erected a full-scale replica of one section of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin within viewing distance of Höcke's home in Bornhagen as a reminder of German history.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Höcke claimed that "Hitler was regarded as only bad".

A video of Höcke emerged in March 2020 in which he used a verb sounding similar to Auschwitz while attacking critics of his Flügel faction. The faction had been placed under surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution shortly before the video surfaced.

Alleged use of Nazi slogan
Björn Höcke is accused by the Halle (Saale) public prosecutor's office of having proclaimed the slogan: "Everything for our homeland, everything for Saxony-Anhalt, everything for Germany!" at the end of a speech he gave at an election event for his party in Merseburg on May 29, 2021. The slogan "Everything for Germany" ("Alles für Deutschland") was introduced by the SA and its public use is punishable by law in Germany. Höcke claimed he did not know the origin of the saying, and argued he was "completely innocent". He was charged in September 2023 and convicted in May 2024. He was fined €13,000.

Höcke is said to have used the slogan again in December 2023, where he said: "Everything for…", to which the audience responded: "Germany!" On July 2024, Höcke was fined by a court in Halle again for using the Nazi slogan "Everything for Germany".

Bernd Höcke
In March 2015 the newspaper Thüringer Allgemeine used "Bernd" erroneously as Höcke's first name. After Höcke complained publicly about this incident, the heute-show, a late night satirical news show, started to systematically use "Bernd" for his first name as a running gag. Later other comedians adopted the idea referring to him as "Bernd" as well. This widespread use among comedians lead to reporters and anchormen of various news media erroneously using "Bernd" on several occasions. In January 2018 even an original press release of the Bundestag accidentally used "Bernd" before it was corrected on the same day. In December 2020 the AfD of North Rhine-Westphalia accidentally invited journalists to a party event with "Herrn [Mr.] Bernd Höcke".

Petition for Ineligibility
In 2023 a petition was started with the intention to revoke Höcke's eligibility to run for parliament. This petition is based on article 18 of the German Constitution, which refers to the forfeiture of fundamental rights. The campaign network Campact started this petition and set the goal of collecting 1,7 million signatures, to urge the German government to action. Legal scholar Gertrude Lübbe-Wolf first introduced the idea of using article 18 of the constitution to defend German democracy, in a way that would be less radical than banning the whole political party (the AfD). This is now the largest German political petition to have ever existed.