ONE of the most prominent figures in the far-right Alternative for Germany party went on trial today on charges of using a Nazi slogan.

Bjorn Hocke, the leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the eastern state of Thuringia and a powerful figure on the party’s hard right, plans to stand for election as the state’s governor later this year.

While never formally a national leader of AfD, the former history teacher has been consistently influential as the 11-year-old party steadily headed further right and ousted several comparatively moderate figures.

At the trial at the state court in Halle, he is charged with using symbols of unconstitutional organisations and with ending a speech in nearby Merseburg in May 2021 with the words: “Everything for Germany!”

Prosecutors contend that he was aware of the origin of the phrase as a slogan of the Nazis’ SA stormtroopers, but Mr Hocke has claimed that it is an “everyday saying.”

Using symbols of unconstitutional organisations can carry a fine or a prison sentence of up to three years. Four court sessions have been scheduled to run until May 14.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the court building before the trial opened, carrying banners with slogans including: “Bjorn Hocke is a Nazi” and “Stop AfD!”

Last week, the court added a second count of using the same phrase to the Halle trial, but it decided shortly before proceedings started to try that separately because Mr Hocke has recently changed his defence lawyers, German news agency dpa reported.

There are no formal pleas in Germany’s legal system and defendants aren’t obliged to respond to the charges.

Mr Hocke once described the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame” and called for Germany to perform a “180-degree turn” in how it remembers its past. A party tribunal in 2018 rejected a bid to have him expelled.

The AfD branch in Thuringia, which Mr Hocke has led since 2013, is now one of three that the domestic intelligence agency has under official surveillance as a “proven right-wing extremist” group.

In Switzerland, the lower house of Swiss parliament followed the example of the Senate on Wednesday by approving a measure to ban the display of Nazi and racist symbols that could foment extremist hate or violence.

The measure was passed by the National Council in the capital Bern by 133 votes to 38 with 17 abstentions.