Thuringia’s AfD leader Björn Höcke is once again involved in a legal dispute over a song. The author, whose piece the AfD quotes in its program, apparently belonged to the “ethnic-nationalist” scene.
The Thuringian Green and environmental politician Bernhard Stengele has filed a private complaint against the two AfD state spokespersons Björn Höcke and Stefan Möller on suspicion of incitement. The complaint was sent to the Erfurt public prosecutor’s office – it is available to the German Press Agency, as is the electronic confirmation of receipt.
Because of lyrics before AfD program: Next complaint against Björn Höcke
It concerns 21 lines of a song by the poet Franz Langheinrich (1864 – 1945), which was placed at the beginning of the AfD’s program for the state elections in September. Langheinrich belonged to the ethnic-nationalist scene and was part of the nationalist “German Art Society,” according to the justification for the complaint.
With statements that evoke associations with the Nazi era, Thuringia’s AfD leader Höcke in particular repeatedly causes controversial debates. Thuringia’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the AfD in the Free State as proven right-wing extremist and is monitoring it. Stengele is running for the Greens as one of the two top candidates for the state election. Höcke is the AfD’s top candidate.
Stengele accuses AfD of “further crossing of boundaries”
“With this report I am putting up a stop sign,” explained Stengele in Erfurt. Lines from an ardent National Socialist at the beginning of an election manifesto are “another transgression” by the AfD. The party is trying to increasingly embed the ethnic-nationalistic anti-Semitic Nazi ideology in the language and thinking of its supporters and to trivialize the crimes – “sometimes more, sometimes less subtly.” This strategy endangers the foundations of democracy in Germany, said Stengele.
“This report is an abuse of the justice system,” declared the AfD regional association, also on behalf of the two spokespersons. It is a desperate attempt by the Green Party’s top candidate “to increase his own popularity at the expense of the AfD. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, objectionable or ‘inciting hatred’ in Franz Langheinrich’s poem,” the statement said.
Source: Stern
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