Björn Höcke has to provide information about his income as a politician

But no, Björn Höcke doesn’t want to go through that. According to his defense attorney, he doesn’t want to say anything about his life or his family, especially since most of it is known anyway. Please ask the High Court to understand this.

But the presiding judge Jan Stengel doesn’t understand it. The life circumstances of a defendant have to be introduced into a main hearing, he says in a reliably grumpy, friendly voice. If the defendant no longer wants to comment on his person, which is of course his right, then witnesses would have to be called to clarify banal questions such as: “Did he go to kindergarten or not?” As a result, you will just need a few more days.

Now it can be said without any exaggeration that the Höcke matter before the 5th Senate of the Halle Regional Court is already dragging on. After all, this is already the third day of a trial over three words.

There are also some hardcore Höckians there

At least the initial excitement has subsided. There are no demonstrators to be seen in front of the justice center and hardly any police officers. Inside, in room X.01, several remain empty. In addition to the still quite numerous journalists, only a few students and other interested people are listening, and a few hardcore Höckians like the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament member Hans-Thomas Tillschneider have appeared.

In fact, the defendant’s life details are probably well known in the room. Höcke was born in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1972 and has lived in Thuringia since 2008. There he was elected state leader of the AfD in 2013, took over the parliamentary group chairmanship in 2014, founded the ethnic wing in 2015 and is now his party’s top candidate for the state elections for the third time.

And: Since April 18th of this year, Höcke has been on trial in Halle for “spreading propaganda from unconstitutional and terrorist organizations.” And, as I said, it drags on.

On day 1 of the trial, the defense made so many motions that public prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen only got around to reading out the short indictment after a heated argument. It can be summarized as follows: Björn Uwe Höcke said “Everything for Germany!” at an AfD rally in Merseburg in 2021. chanted – and this was aware of the fact that it was the slogan of the storm department of the NSDAP.

On the second day of the trial, almost a week later, the defendant commented on the allegations. Höcke said he didn’t know that the last part of his sentence was “Everything for our homeland, everything for Saxony-Anhalt, everything for Germany!” was an SA saying. “I’m actually completely innocent!” he asserted. He had “nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with National Socialism.”

But that’s exactly what the public prosecutor’s office doesn’t believe. In order to prove Höcke’s closeness to Nazi ideas, Bernzen submitted additional applications for evidence on Friday. Several videos should be played in the courtroom. The first shows Höcke taking part in a neo-Nazi demonstration in Dresden in February 2020 and chanting “We want to march!” chanted. The second documents his speech in October 2016 in Gera, in which he spoke of “blatant injustice” in connection with the condemnation of Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck. And the third video shows him in Gera last December criticizing the charges against him at an AfD event, then shouting “Everything for…” and gesturally asking the audience to complete the sentence.

All of these records, says the prosecutor, are important for sentencing. Because they illustrate “the attitude that speaks from action.” The same applies to Höcke’s recent statements on the social network

The defense considers the applications to be largely unfounded or even unnecessary. Although participation in the Dresden demonstration could be viewed as “very inappropriate,” says lawyer Philip Müller, it was more than a decade ago and has nothing to do with the charges. Gera’s video, in turn, should not be introduced because it is known to be the subject of a separate indictment by the Halle public prosecutor’s office. And his client’s criticism of certain criminal offenses is simply an “opinion that one can have.”

Despite the contradiction on the merits, the defense has moderated its tone. After lawyer Müller, at the start of the trial, invoked the threat of “abuse of power by the judiciary” and suggested that the court was biased after the “massive prejudgment” of Höcke by the public and the media, he is now taking a more authoritative stance. It fits that he presents a printed email from the Saxony-Anhalt AfD. It is intended to prove that Höcke had nothing to do with the fact that the “Everything for Germany” speech was until recently available on the state party’s Internet platform. Rather, his client asked the state party to take the video off the internet.

Judge: “It’s not that we don’t want to…”

And because Höcke claims to be innocent from Thuringia and obviously doesn’t want his former kindergarten teachers to be called as witnesses, he tells us a little about his life. After describing how he was “stalked” and how his “privacy was invaded”, he talks about his educational path from, to be precise, kindergarten to studying to be a teacher in the subjects of history and sports. He then describes his work at various Hessian schools and briefly describes his political career.

Then things get weird again. Judge Stengel asks the expected standard question of a defendant about how high their current income is. Höcke hesitates. As parliamentary group leader, he gets double the MP diet, he replies. But how much exactly? Höcke hesitates even longer. “My wife is the finance minister,” he finally says. Net, maybe 9,000 euros, including child benefit.

After this revelation early at noon, this day of the trial is also over. The court will now decide on the evidence requests, says Stengel, adding a troy ounce of irony: “It’s not that we don’t want to – but no, Mr. Höcke, that has to be in accordance with the rule of law!” The presiding judge routinely brushes aside the defense’s suggestion that there would be “a lot of time” in the afternoon to make progress: “No, it’s Friday!” Otherwise he’ll get in trouble with the staff council…

In view of this progress, it is doubtful whether the verdict will be reached on the next day of the hearing on May 14th. After all, the court has already stated that only a fine would be considered. By the time the decision is made, which will probably be appealed in every case, the defendant may have sorted out his finances.

To help you: According to the announcements of the Thuringian state parliament, Björn Höcke’s basic compensation, financed from tax revenues, is 13,096.24 euros per month.