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.[6] 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.[7] He is said to be part of the
"national-conservative wing" of the AfD.[8] His faction of the party is known as the
Flügel (the Wing)[9] and 40 percent of the AfD party members identify themselves with it.[10]
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.[11]
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.[12] This led to Meuthen Ultimately quitting himself in 2022.[13]
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").[14]
In June 2023 Höcke was charged.[15][16][17][18]
Political views
Höcke espouses
far-right views.[19]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.[20][21] 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.[22] He has participated in several rallies of the anti-Islam
Pegida movement in the early 2020s.[23][24][25]
Immigration policy
Regarding the
European migrant crisis, Höcke opposes Germany's
asylum policy,[26][27] leading regular demonstrations in Erfurt against the federal government's asylum policy, which regularly attracted several thousand sympathizers.[28] He opposes the
euro, favoring a return to national currencies.[29]
He is reported to have declared that if Europe keeps on taking in immigrants, the African "reproductive behavior" will not change.[30] In 2017, Höcke stated "dear young African men: for you there is no future and no home in Germany and in Europe!"[31]
Family policy
Höcke has called for more
Prussian virtues and promotes
natalist views, specifically the "three-child family as a political and social model."[32] He opposes
gender mainstreaming and demands an end of what he calls "social experiments" that undermine what he deems the "natural gender order."[33]
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".[34][citation needed]
Controversies
Ties to Neo-Nazis
Höcke has links with
neo-Nazi circles in Germany.[1][2] Höcke has written with Thorsten Heise, a leader of
NPD.[35][36] 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.[37][38]
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"[41] and suggested that Germans "need to make a 180 degree change in their commemoration policy".[42][43]
The speech was widely criticized as
antisemitic, 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".[41][44] 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.[45][11]
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.[19]
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.[48]
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.[49] He was charged in September 2023.[50][51]
Bernd Höcke
In March 2015 the newspaper
Thüringer Allgemeine used "Bernd" erroneously as Höcke's first name.[52] 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.[53] Later other comedians adopted the idea referring to him as "Bernd" as well.[54][55] This widespread use among comedians lead to reporters and anchormen of various news media erroneously using "Bernd" on several occasions.[56][57][58] In January 2018 even an original press release of the
Bundestag accidentally used "Bernd" before it was corrected on the same day.[59][60] In December 2020 the AfD of
North Rhine-Westphalia accidentally invited journalists to a party event with "Herrn [Mr.] Bernd Höcke".[61]