Thuringia's AfD leader Björn Höcke has had to answer before the Halle regional court since Thursday. The 52-year-old is said to have used Nazi vocabulary.
The public prosecutor's office accuses him of knowing that the slogan "Everything for Germany" was a forbidden slogan of the Nazi party NSDAP. The trial in Halle is now the first trial that the North Rhine-Westphalia-born politician has ever faced. If convicted, the penalty ranges from a fine to three years in prison, but the presumption of innocence applies until a possible conviction. The Thuringian AfD, of which he is chairman, is classified and monitored by the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution as definitely right-wing extremist. It was by no means certain that the indictment would be read out on Thursday. There were several interruptions to the hearing. Höcke's lawyers submitted a number of applications - they even wanted to appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court. Höcke's defense wanted to ensure that all days of the trial were digitally recorded on tape before the actual main hearing began. They requested a stay of the proceedings until the Naumburg Higher Regional Court made a decision on the complaint. There had already been a legal dispute on this question beforehand. According to current planning, there will be three more days of negotiations before a decision should be made in mid-May, court spokeswoman Adina Kessler-Jensch says. The indictment for this case was linked to the indictment for the speech in Merseburg. The two cases were separated again, as a court spokeswoman explained, because Höcke's defenders changed at short notice. The German politician is accused of using the SA slogan again at an appearance in Gera last December. He is said to have said the first part "Everything for" himself and used gestures to encourage the audience to shout "Germany's." The case is expected to last until the end of May.