A radical provocateur
At 52, this former sports and history teacher, born in North Rhine-Westphalia, has become in a few years one of the most radical voices of the far-right party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The son of a teacher in a school for the blind and a nurse, he was marked from a young age by family stories about East Prussia, where his family comes from and from where his grandparents were driven out by the Red Army. A heritage that he has put to the service of his political career. His recurring provocations have in no way slowed down the voters of Thuringia, a Länd in central Germany, who placed his political party well ahead in the regional election on 1is September, with almost 33% of the vote. Considered unapproachable by the other parties, the AfD nevertheless has little chance of forming a coalition.
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Complaisant towards Nazism
It was through his proximity to neo-Nazi circles that Björn Höcke emerged on the German political scene, when he was elected to the Thuringian parliament in 2014. Very early on, the man assumed uninhibited remarks on the legacy of Nazism, tinged with revisionism. In a speech in Dresden in January 2017, he described the Berlin Holocaust Memorial as “monument of shame” and calls on Germany to operate “a 180 degree turn in his memorial policy.” “The big problem is that Hitler is presented as absolutely bad, he further affirmed in an interview with Wall Street Journal in 2017. But, of course, we know that there is no black or white in history.” The courts have so far considered that his multiple borrowings from the lexicon of National Socialism were conscious and assumed, in particular when he was convicted in May and July for his use of the slogan of the SA (a Nazi paramilitary organisation) “Alles für Deutschland” [« tout pour l’Allemagne »].
Absentee and embarrassing
Protected by his fame, the character does not, however, have unanimous support within the AfD, whose leaders aspire to govern one day. His embarrassing outbursts are annoying, which partly explains why he has never dared to run for the federal leadership of the party. In the press, close friends point out his absences from the Thuringian parliament, which nevertheless pays him 13,000 euros in compensation as group leader, according to the Spiegel. Nine times, his immunity as a member of parliament has been lifted so that he could be investigated without his career being hampered. His megalomania is also annoying. Convinced that he has a national destiny, Björn Höcke invokes in his appearances the myth of the Kyffhäuser, a Germanic legend according to which the 12th-century emperore century Frederick Barbarossa will one day awaken to lead the empire to new greatness.
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