A few supporters have gathered in front of the podium in the small eastern German town of Gera, as Björn Höcke, a far-right politician of the German right-wing extremist party AfD, addresses the crowd. He excites those present with his uniquely sounding, slightly old-fashioned, patriotic rhetoric. Waving his hands, the politician shouts, “Everything for…” and the crowd answers with “…Germany”. Why does Höcke let the crowd finish the sentence? It is because the phrase “everything for Germany” (Alles für Deutschland) is banned in Germany. It used to be a major slogan of the SA, a paramilitary group under the Nazi-regime. Höcke knows that because he faces a trial over using the sentence in an earlier speech in 2021.
Höcke’s case is interesting because it represents an underlying war over Germany’s boundaries of freedom of speech. Even more so, it is a war over the very essence of a German consensus over what can be said, what is legitimized, and what is demonized in an attempt to reshape political norms in Germany.
The case of Björn Höcke resembles the German issue with freedom of speech
Björn Höcke is one of the most prominent figures belonging to the right wing of the AfD. While Germany’s domestic intelligence service (BfV) only recently classified the AfD as right-wing extremist, the state chapter of the party in Thuringia, where Höcke presides over, received this label already in 2021. After his usage of the banned slogan “Everything for Germany”, a German court found Höcke guilty, and the politician received a sentence of 13,000€ ($15,200). In August 2025, the verdict was officially confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH). Höcke had been arguing that the sentence was “an everyday sentence” and that “[it] has been documented in the German language since the 16th century.” After all, the court did not find his claims of not knowing that the sentence was a slogan used by the SA credible enough.
Höcke appears to have tested the boundaries of what one is able to say in the German public multiple times before. He has openly advocated for a “180 degree shift” in the German culture of remembrance regarding the Second World War and has called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin a “memorial of shame”. While the outrage over these statements has been loud, Höcke was able to achieve two things through this discourse. He generated a big amount of publicity around his persona and, more importantly, he was able to frame himself as a defender of freedom of speech. Höcke emphasized that the trial against him was unjustified, but also that it represents a wider issue with freedom of expression in Germany. The case of Björn Höcke thus raises not only the question of how figures like Björn Höcke are able to instrumentalize these cases to portray themselves as fighters for alternative viewpoints but also how such cases and the discourse surrounding them should be adequately approached.
To understand why the case of Björn Höcke is so sensitive, one has to acknowledge Germany’s unique perspective regarding freedom of speech, given its history. While Article 5 of the German constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression as one of the most central human rights, the German law also includes possibilities to favor other personal rights over the right of expression. Through this lens, hate speech such as racism, as well as expressions that are regarded as directed against the constitutional democratic order, can be illegal. This is where the German interpretation of freedom of speech departs from others, such as the First Amendment in the US. This understanding results from the German history of fascism, which is why particular symbols and statements concerning the NS regime and the Holocaust are not protected by freedom of speech.
The AfD’s narrative of victimhood of censorship
The case of Björn Höcke ties into a wider phenomenon of the AfD reshaping German norms and the framing of how to talk about Germany’s nazi past. In an interview with Elon Musk, Alice Weidel, the current head of the party, claimed that Hitler was a communist. In another instance, the former head of the party, Alexander Gauland, said that “Hitler and the Nazis are just bird poo in over 1,000 years of successful German history”. These statements certainly were met by vocal opposition and extensive media coverage pointing towards the dangers of this rhetoric. So what is it that politicians of the AfD try to gain from making these statements?
Analysts have characterized these cases as a deliberate strategy by the AfD. In an interview with Liz Fakete, the director of the Institute of Race Relations, conducted by Euronews, Fakete acknowledges that “[the AfD is] very adept at using the free speech issue [and] pushing at the limits of free speech”. Further, she describes how “the AfD […] are using [a] sort of nationalism and the idea that the nation, the people of the nation, the German Volk are martyrs, are victims to a kind of political correctness on free speech.”
The key to Fakete’s analysis lies in the idea of victimhood. Not only is the goal to shift the norms of what can be said in public, but the apparent threat of censorship also serves as a narrative that benefits the AfD politically. Because these statements are outside the realm of what politicians can normally say, large outrage and delegitimization can be anticipated. The AfD is able to turn this to its advantage by constructing a narrative of victimhood over this outrage. Politicians then frame these reactions as censorship. When Björn Höcke, for instance, was asked about his usage of the nazi-slogan in a debate, he responded by complaining about the state of freedom of speech in Germany and noting that one is allowed to say that they hate Germany but is persecuted when using the phrase he voiced.
The narrative of being a victim of censorship is an extremely powerful one. It aligns itself with the populist idea of the establishment consisting of a political elite that systematically suppresses alternative opinions. Through this way, the party is able to construct the idea of a mainstream representing the established parties that uses repression of alternative opinions to stay in power. These narratives seem to meet more and more fertile ground.
The issue of freedom of speech appears to be gaining significance in the practical life of Germans. In a recent study by Allensbach, it was found that for the first time, the number of Germans agreeing with the statement that one has to be careful what to say exceeds that of those agreeing with the statement that they feel free to say what they want. Arguably, this decline relates particularly to topics surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, immigration, or gender and sexuality. The AfD was able to capitalize on exactly these topics by presenting a story of deliberate censorship of the elites while at the same time normalizing once ostracized views. With their systematic breach of German political norms and laws regarding Germany’s history of nazism, actors of the AfD are thus able to widen the narrative of censorship to other issues as well.
How to approach the discourse around freedom of speech
The central question remains how to deal with these sentiments and the discourse surrounding censorship and freedom of speech. The tricky challenge is to clearly point out problematic statements while not feeding into the narrative of suppression. One approach must lie in a better distinction between right-wing opinions and the deliberate usage of right-wing extremist rhetoric. These two have to be addressed differently. The case of Björn Höcke using a nazi-slogan at a campaign rally falls into the latter category. It has to be met with clear judgment and, if applicable, persecution. Cases where right-wing politicians argue about controversial topics like immigration should, however, not be met by the same kind of automatic delegitimization. They have to be addressed by their content.
Although it is easy, delegitimizing right-wing opinions by framing them as nazi-rhetoric or propaganda is risky because it fuels the very narrative of suppression and censorship that grows distrust in the established parties. At the same time, it discredits other claims of nazi-ideology in the AfD, because of the inflationary usage of the nazi-accusation. When interviewed by Deutschlandfunk, journalist Henrik Merker notes: “it is simply pointless to attach this [right-wing extremist] label to it. […] the label loses value the more often it is used”. While the label is necessary to call out nazi-rhetoric, it needs to be reserved for cases such as that of Björn Höcke. The attempt of the AfD to transfer the narrative of being a victim of censorship to other political issues has to be approached by addressing these topics factually.
Germany’s democracy at a crossroads
Cases such as that of Björn Höcke show the implications of the different ways of addressing extremist rhetoric. With its unique history concerning freedom of speech, Germany’s consensus over handling such cases is especially tested due to far-right rhetoric stretching the boundaries of what can be articulated in public. The issue of freedom of speech thus serves as a powerful populist narrative to seed distrust in a constructed political mainstream. How this strategy will be met by the wider public will determine whether faith in Germany’s discourse and its freedom of speech can be restored.
Image source: PBS
