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Who is Björn Höcke?

The Nazi past (and present) of the AfD’s rising star


21/09/2024

This month, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) made history by winning its first state election in Germany. The party was led to success by Björn Höcke, a rising kingpin in the AfD. His influence has grown so much that the youth branch of the AfD, Junge Alternative (JA), once referred to themselves as the ‘Höckejugend‘. With a strong grass-roots following, Höcke has become one of the critical driving forces in the revival of the political far-right in Germany, and at his current trajectory, sights are set firmly on party leadership and even the Chancellorship. 

Höcke positions himself as a radical alternative to the ‘theatre politics’ of Germany’s centrist parties, while the AfD’s politics are rather a copy-paste smorgasbord of ideas shared by other populist far-right movements in Europe, including Euroscepticism, pro-Russian sentiment, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim views. What particularly distinguishes Höcke within the AfD is his extremism, characterised by a focus on historical revisionism and his nationalist agenda.

History

Born in 1972 in the Ruhr region, his family moved to rural Germany to enjoy “a quiet country life”. His own mother describes his school years as rather typical, boisterous and at times outspoken, with frequent challenges to authority. Already at the age of 14, he was politically active, briefly joining the Junge Union, the youth organisation of the CDU/CSU coalition, but quickly became dissatisfied with the “career politician” approach he witnessed there. 

Höcke was deeply politicised by his family, recounting how his grandparents inspired him with stories of their homeland in East Prussia. History is a key component of Höcke’s identity and politics, later studying it at university and then becoming a history teacher in 2004. In his own words:

“But politics could not be escaped there either … Every day, I was confronted with the terrible consequences of absurd ideology projects such as ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘inclusion’”

He proudly notes that he shares the same birthday as Otto von Bismarck, the infamous Prussian leader who unified Germany through military power and shrewd politics, consolidating state control and elevating the German empire into a global superpower. Given the AfD’s strong anti-multicultural stance, it’s noteworthy that 19th century East Prussia was a testing ground for the German Empire’s “Germanization” policies, designed to assimilate non-German ethnic groups by promoting German culture and settling ethnic Germans in the region. Höcke claims that sharing a birthday with Bismarck strengthens his “commitment to orient (himself) to his stately size and his love for the country and people”.

Bismarck was also used by the Nazis as a symbol of German nationalist ideals: a strong, decisive leader, a defender of the traditional order, a unified national identity and culture. For Höcke, this period of German history is particularly significant, as he believes it allows modern nationalists to draw pride from a time unburdened by the guilt narratives tied with WW2 and the Holocaust.

When the AfD was founded in late 2012, Höcke quickly took steps to quit his job as a teacher and by April 2013 he had co-founded a regional branch in Thuringia. His efforts paid off when, by autumn 2014, the AfD secured 10.6% of the vote, gaining seats in the state parliament. By 2019, support for the AfD in Thuringia had nearly doubled, with the party receiving 23.4% of the vote.

Meanwhile, in 2015, Höcke co-founded Der Flügel, a radical ethno-nationalist faction of the AfD, self-described as a “resistance movement against the further erosion of the identity of Germany”, who widely adopted racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, xenophobic, revisionist and denialist discourse. In March 2020, Der Flügel was officially classified by the German state as a right-wing extremist organisation, after which the Chief of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution(BfV) described right-wing extremism as “the biggest threat to German democracy”. This made the leaders of the AfD pressure Höcke to dissolve Der Flügel, avoiding the entire party being banned outright. Controversially however, its founding members, including Höcke, were not asked to leave the party.  

Banned Speech

After the classification of Der Flügel as an extremist group, the BfV began monitoring Höcke, considering him a danger to German democracy. Since then, he has repeatedly been fined for using a banned slogan, firstly during a party campaign speech in 2021 and again in December last year where he also encouraged the audience to join. He was fined €13,000 & €16,900 respectively for using the phrase “Alles für Deutschland!” (“Everything for Germany!”), a slogan used by Hilter’s SA Stormtroopers, and engraved on their service daggers. Höcke, the history graduate and history teacher of 10 years, claimed he didn’t know the historical significance of the term, the same excuse used by fellow AfD party & Bundestag Member in 2020, and yet another AfD politician in 2017.

However, the slogan is seemingly a favourite for the AfD. Shamelessly dancing around the edges of banned speech, “Alice für Deutschland” was encouraged by AfD event moderators, written on banners and chanted by AfD supporters at a rally in Freiberg this year, in support of Alice Weidel, chairwoman of the AfD, who has also since joked that Höcke was saying “Alice” not “Alles”. To some, this is a harmless statement of patriotism, to others an undeniable dog whistle signifying the party’s true radical agenda. 

Höcke has previously criticised German hate speech laws as limiting free speech. A similar sentiment was expressed this year in a Twitter discussion with Elon Musk stating: “Germany is at the forefront of persecuting political opponents and suppressing free speech” on X. Elon Musk, X (Twitter) owner, replied by asking why that slogan was illegal in Germany. Höcke replied, “Because every patriot in Germany is defamed as a Nazi”.

Historical Revisionism

Höcke’s family influence is further evident in his other views, as it was revealed that his father subscribed to the Holocaust denial & revisionist literature. In 2017, Höcke spoke to the AfD youth faction, Junge Alternative (JA), in Dresden about Germany’s remembrance culture:

“We Germans are the only people in the world who have planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital”.

He went on by stating:

“This stupid coping policy is still paralysing us today. We need nothing other than a 180-degree turnaround in remembrance policy. We don’t need any more dead rites”.

Although later distancing himself from this sentiment, the intentional ambiguity, spoken in a neo-Nazi hotspot, clearly intended to provoke revisionist fantasies. Dresden is seen as a flash-point for victimisation narratives (i.e. that Germany was also a victim of the Second World War), and the AfD frequently commemorates the anniversary of the Allied bombing of Dresden. Furthermore, Höcke believes: 

“It should be reported to the same extent that the Americans starved German prisoners of war in the prison camps in the Rheinauen after the end of the Second World War.”

Later that same year, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Höcke continued his desire to discard the country’s historical guilt and pleaded for a more positive representation of Adolf Hilter, stating:

“Not everything was bad… The big problem is that Hitler is portrayed as absolutely evil. But of course, we know that there is no black and white in history.”

An Eco-Fascist Future?

One final note is evidence of the prerequisites to eco-fascism in Höcke’s rhetoric. Whilst the AfD is filled with climate denialists, Höcke has shown public support for Die Kehre magazine, which tries to reclaim left-wing environmentalism by rebranding “Klimaschutz” as “Heimatschutz”. His personal website also goes to great lengths to paint a picture of a grounded, nature-loving, everyday man, who is nevertheless willing to defend himself, if necessary. 

Outro

What is dangerous about Höcke is perhaps less his ideas, but rather how toothless the institutional antifascist mechanisms in Germany seemingly are. The so-called “defensive democracy” policies of the modern German state seek to protect the state from descending back into nazism. Let’s see how Höcke checks up with the Verfassungsschutz:

  • Surveillance by the state ✅
  • Fines for usage of banned speech ✅
  • Banning of extremist groups ✅ (Der Flügel dissolved prior to a ban)
  • Revoking political financing …
  • Prison sentences …

At this point, we have to ask what the red line is for Germany and Höcke. Is it already too late? After all, Hitler was democratically elected into power.

Until the root causes of extremism are addressed, and the needs of the left-behind seeking a different politics are addressed, right-wing extremism will continue to flourish in Germany. 

An Afternoon at Sachsenhausen

A Photo Essay


20/09/2024

While scrolling on Instagram last spring I came across an interesting interview published by The Left Berlin that included alternative views on German memory culture from a Palestinian perspective. Specifically regarding the popular Holocaust memorial near the Reichstag. Rasha Al Jundi and Michael Jabareen are Palestinian artists. They offer what I believe is an interesting and unique challenge to Germany’s myopic and self serving memory culture. The latter often ignores or downplays both the genocide in Namibia and the Roma/Sinti victims of Nazi oppression.

There was something very visually arresting about this diminutive but determined looking woman standing there with those concrete slabs looming over her while wearing her keffiyeh, calmly gazing directly at the camera. “What about us?” was the question that seemed to hang in the air above her. One aspect of her creative intervention that only became obvious to me relatively recently was that this was a powerful display of embodiment. She seemed to acknowledge the reality of the Palestinian body as an inherently disruptive force within the German mainstream. 

The role of the artist as a disrupter, provocateur and one who names what others fear to articulate is embodied very well in the historical figure of Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven, one of the founders of the Dada movement. ‘The Baroness,’ as she was known, was a counter-culture German woman. Her life and work is very important to my own artistic practice which concerns art as premonition and the craft of divination. It is those concepts that the Baroness fully embodied.

In retrospect, I see Rasha and Michael as engaging in similar provocations as the early Dadaists, who, unconcerned with social norms and propriety, were willing to challenge the establishment – often with their very bodies as instruments of disruption.

The gaslighting and machinations of the pro-Israel “anti-Deutsch” weirdos, as well as the arrogant and delusional attitudes of German mainstream liberals, left me feeling like I was in the Twilight Zone. Most grotesque of all is how the German mainstream claims to “protect Jewish life” via their demented staatsraison. Meanwhile ignoring and denying the diversity of thought and opinion that exists within the Jewish community. One worthwhile intervention involves unearthing hidden perspectives from history that are relevant to the current situation with the Palestinians. Like these diary quotes from German Jewish scholar and Holocaust survivor Victor Klemperer:

“I cannot help myself, I sympathize with the Arabs who are in revolt, whose land is being ‘bought.’ A Red Indian fate, says Eva.” 

“We hear a lot about Palestine now; it does not appeal to us. Anyone who goes there exchanges nationalism and narrowness for nationalism and narrowness. Also it is a country for capitalists.” 

Unfortunately, many European Jews who agreed with Klemperer in his sympathies with the Palestinians were murdered by the Nazis. Something we must reflect upon when surveying the current social landscape. 

Reflecting on these photos of Rasha and Michael at Sachsenhausen with the events of the past eleven months in mind, it became clear to me – as an independent researcher, activist and socially engaged artist – that the flames of fascism were never fully doused. The embers were left smouldering and now the house is once again on fire, especially for those facing genocide today. During the Civil Rights movement Harry Belafonte was surprised at Martin Luther King’s pessimism about Black Americans “integrating into a burning house” and asked him what the solution was. His response is a message for us today. “…become the firemen.” King said, “Let us not stand by and let the house burn.”

Beginning at the end, with an affirmation of life. This was after Rasha, Michael and I returned from our somber trip and the relative silence of Sachsenhausen to the lively bustle of the city. Berlin, Germany (August 2023)

 

Rasha and Michel walking through the front gates of Sachsenhausen with its familiar cynical phrase about freedom through work. Between 1936 and 1945 this camp imprisoned over 200,000 people, 30,000 of whom were murdered there. In addition to Jews and Roma, this camp incarcerated many considered “Aryan” under nazi racial laws and was mostly for political prisoners, queer men, “career criminals” and those considered “asocial.” Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

An imposing Soviet era memorial at the camp. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

Michael contemplates one of the thought provoking sculptures in this memorial garden located in a wooded area outside of the main camp. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

The smokestack of the crematorium as seen from the memorial garden outside the camp’s main wall. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

A memorial sculpture dedicated to Sachsenhausen’s many victims. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

In the mortuary. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

‘The Descent’: a title I have given this photo because of its eerie foreshadowing, taken about two months before the tragic events of October 7th. Here we see Michael and Rasha descending the stairs into the basement of Sachsenhausen’s mortuary where corpses were stored. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

Confronting genocide: there was an eerie stillness in the mortuary until we began talking; then our voices echoed quite dramatically. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

Peeking through to the other side. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

Hunger. The bowl and spoon were prisoner’s most valuable possessions in the camp. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

A photo of myself taken by Michael in one of the underground connecting passageways. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

The place where prisoners were executed by firing squad. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

What is it? Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

Remembrance (1). A queer inmate who was murdered in the camp. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2024)
Remembrance (2). A Ukrainian imprisoned for sabotage. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2024)

 

Parked police vehicle at the police training center located directly adjacent to the camp. Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

Comedy or bitter satire? Sachsenhausen Memorial (August 2023)

 

Concerning embodiment, coincidence and divination: a photo from the Berlin home of a German friend who works in some capacity with the SPD. Berlin, Germany (April 2023)

 

The ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ train station in Berlin hearkens back to Germany’s fascination with the antebellum American south. I was shocked to learn that Black Germans have been trying unsuccessfully to change the name of this station so I decided to emulate what Rasha and Michael did at the Berlin Holocaust memorial: use my body to directly confront this narrative and this history. Berlin, Germany (September 2023)

 

Victor the Cat (named after Victor Klemperer as a homage to he and his wife Eva’s great love of cats) at the Rote Insel housing project. The stigma and persecution of black cats in the western world began with the German priest and nobleman Konrad von Marburg who, in 1233, claimed to have uncovered a secret devil worshiping cult that made use of black cats in their rituals. Victor the cat now lives in Berlin with a nice Polish couple. Berlin, Germany (August 2023)

Exchange with South African Housing Activists

Week of activities and Events organised by Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen and the rosa luxemburg stiftung


This is a notice sent to The Left Berlin by Right 2 The City, the international section of Deutsch Wohnen & Co. Enteignen.

Deutsche Wohnen und Co Enteignen (DWE), with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, is happy to invite you to a series of exchange and activities with activists from the movement Abahlali baseMjondolo and from the NGO Ndifuna Ukwazi from South Africa.

On the third anniversary of the historic and successful referendum calling for the expropriation of large landlords, DWE is organizing an international exchange between housing movements. South African activists from the shack dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo and from Ndifuna Ukwazi are visiting Berlin. We have put together a program of different activities with them!

1: Workshop – Building an international solidarity network

What connects housing struggles in Berlin and Capetown? What do neighborhood organizing and fighting for property reforms from below have to do with internationalism? What solidarity actions can be used to support each other across our local contexts? We invite you to take part in a workshop on these questions – and discussing the concrete possibility of establishing a solidarity network between housing movements from Berlin and South Africa.

In the morning part of the workshop, we will draw connections between the different local movements and share visions for the possibility of housing struggles to radically change our societies. In the afternoon session, we will focus on the concrete needs and potentials for long-term collaboration and practical solidarity between our movements.

Please register by sending an e-mail to ernacassara@zedat.fu-berlin.de, and let us know if you will come as an individual or if you represent an activist group.

The workshop will be held in English. If you need simultaneous translation into German, please let us know in your registration e-mail.
🗓️ Monday 23 September,  11.00-16.00  Lunch will be provided. Register for the address.

2: Kino Abend – Film Screening about Housing Struggles

On Monday evening we are showing movies about the housing struggles in South Africa and the inspiring fight of Abahlali baseMjondolo, as well as “Start wearing purple”, the heartwarming documentary about the Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen initiative and referendum.

🗓️ Monday 23 September, 8pm, Regenbogenfabrik (Lausitzer Straße 21a, 10999 Berlin). Free entry.

🎤 The movies will be in English. “Start wearing purple” will have German subtitles.

3: Panel Discussion – Property Reforms from Below: A Discussion between Housing Movements from South Africa and Berlin

Speakers: Katalin Gennburg, Joana Kusiak, activists from Abahlali baseMjondolo, Ndifuna Ukwazi, and DWE

On Wednesday we are organizing a panel discussion to learn about the main struggles surrounding access to housing and land justice in South Africa, as well as the history, strategies and successes of our movements. Why must housing struggles be from below? How relevant is the form of property and the involvement of the state? How do movements organize themselves? We want to discuss these questions and more with our guests, as well as you. Come and join us!

🗓️ Wednesday 25 September, 7pm, KIEZRAUM auf dem Dragonerareal Obentrautstraße 1-21, 10963 Berlin. Free entry.

Accessibility: room is on the ground floor.

🎤 The Event is in English: German translation available on demand.

Can Berlin get over its addiction to cars?

A Neukölln Kiez has reduced traffic. A right-wing tabloid declares this to be a “risk of death”. Will Berlin ever be for people, instead of for cars?


19/09/2024

Earlier this month, Berlin’s biggest tabloid, B.Z., splashed a warning across its title page: “RISK OF DEATH”. This mortal danger was right in my neighborhood! But what merited an all-caps warning?

If you walk around the southern part of North Neukölln, the danger is obvious: cars. Up to 4.000 cars were hurtling over the once-tranquil Richardplatz every day, past day cares and elementary schools. Cars aren’t just dangerous when they hit someone. Their tires produce even more deadly pollution than their exhausts do. Their noise in residential areas also significantly shortens life expectancy. Their carbon emissions cause floods, droughts, and other deadly catastrophes.

But it seems as B.Z. doesn’t want you worrying about any of that. No, their concern is about a handful of bollards installed by the Neukölln district council on August 21 and 27. This “Kiezblock” (neighborhood block) is designed to prevent cars taking shortcuts past our homes in Rixdorf. The tabloid claims these will block firetrucks in an emergency.

It might seem superfluous to point out that a publication from the Axel Springer Company is bending the truth. But briefly: Kiezblocks are safe. The fire department has keys to remove the bollards in a few seconds if necessary. They were consulted as the Kiezblock was being planned. What actually blocks emergency vehicles in Berlin? Not bollards, but illegally parked cars.

We also read that “there was no civic engagement”. Yet the Kiezblock was voted on more than three years ago! There have been numerous public meetings and demonstrations. In a column from almost two years ago, I made no secret of my impatience with the bureaucracy’s foot-dragging.

This was a tiny example of the right-wing moral panics Berlin goes through regularly. A Springer publication starts something that seems like a misinformation campaign – which then gets taken up by SPD politicians and supposedly serious publications as the supposed “voice of Berlin”.

The truth is that the Kiezblock has been immensely popular. A spokesperson of the Neukölln district council said that “the majority of residents welcomes” the measure. I can confirm this: I surveyed my neighbors and 91 percent rated the Kiezblock as “gut”.

Who has been angry? Drivers who were used to speeding past our home. But drivers are often angry – studies show that driving is far more stressful than taking the train. Drivers will often say they love their cars, even as their faces are twisted in rage.

I have been wondering: Are cars like an addiction? I used to smoke, and like the majority of people who kicked the habit, I wish I had never started. I needed to get away from cigarettes for a few months to recognize they are harmful and kinda disgusting.

At the moment, many Berliners believe they could never live without cars. But what would happen if they got to experience a city made for people? I imagine, before long, we would look back with shame and revulsion about a time when cars dominated our streets – just like when we imagine people smoking in hospitals and day cares.

Ljubljana made its inner-city car-free back in 2008. Despite some protests at first, the measures are now supported by 95 percent of residents. Once people start to experience a car-free city – where kids can play on the street and neighbors can hang out – it’s hard to go back.

Most people in Berlin can get around with bikes, trams, trains, and buses. All of these systems need massive investment – we need billions for public transit instead of new Autobahns. People with reduced mobility deserve to be transported at the city’s expense. But no one needs a two-ton metal box that is capable of going 300km/h to get around. Anyone who really needs a car can do just fine with a golf cart with a top speed of 20km/h. This would leave space for essential vehicles – ambulances, fire trucks, and last-mile deliveries – to get to their destinations easily.

If B.Z. were interested in reducing the risk of death in Berlin, they would be campaigning to get rid of cars.

This is a mirror of Nathaniel’s Red Flag column for Neues Deutschland

Fascists Organising at a School Near You

While politicians scaremonger about Islamists, neo-Nazi group ‘Der Dritte Weg’ is recruiting a new generation of fanatics at schools and parks in and around Berlin.


18/09/2024

In the last months, the far right has seen large advances in Germany, especially with the electoral successes in Saxony and Thuringia. In Berlin, the neo-Nazi group Der Dritte Weg (The Third Way) has been carrying out demonstrations and several high-profile attacks, usually alongside its youth organisation Nationalrevolutionäre Jugend (NRJ), as part of a growing emboldening of the far right. 

Der Dritte Weg is a recognised political party, and stands for election in some state-level German elections, where it usually receives between 0.5 and 4% of votes. In 2019 it received 12,756 votes in the European Election. It was founded in 2013 in part by members of other banned neo-Nazi groups, such as Klaus Armstroff who had been part of the National Democratic Party of Germany. 

Another member, “Susanne G.”, sent death threats to a Muslim community centre, local politicians and a local refugee aid association. She allegedly had been planning actual attacks against the community centre, politicians and a police station.  

Der Dritte Weg gained a new level of popularity during the pandemic when it advocated against the so-called “Corona Diktatur”. Despite its occasional electoral efforts, the party is suspected by the Verfassungsschutz (Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency) to maintain its electoral wing only because its status as a political party makes it harder to ban than an association.

The group has been especially active in Berlin as of late. It stickered outside of Die Linke politician Ferat Koçak’s house back in April. Koçak, who is a member of the Berlin state parliament and his party’s speaker on antifascism, has been the target of repeated Nazi threats and attacks, including a firebombing of his family home seven years ago which finally went to court last week. They are also reported to be behind an attack in July against anti-fascists at Ostkreuz station where neo-Nazis used pepper spray and quartz-lined gloves, an attack where the lack of police preventative action led Koçak to ponder on Instagram “whether police forces really have an interest in protecting left-wing activists from the right.”

Yet fascist groups such as Der Dritte Weg haven’t been successful in every case. One group of 30 or so neo-Nazis, many of them minors and reportedly from outside of Berlin, attempted to attack the Christopher Street Day pride parade in July, but the police prevented them. They were released shortly afterwards. Likewise, in advance of their state election victories, the AfD attempted to organise a celebration in the predominantly migrant neighbourhood of Neukölln, a clear provocation which backfired in the face of an anti-fascist coalition which organised a counter demonstration. The counter-demonstrators not only succeeded in having the Neukölln party cancelled, but went to Pankow to protest outside the relocated AfD celebrations, highlighting the possibilities of grassroots mobilisations.

Behind these attacks and increasing bravado lies active recruitment, especially of youth. While some foreign commentators go on about a historic divide going back over a thousand years as the main explanation for why the far right is finding success, neo-Nazi groups are actively taking advantage of the economic disenfranchisement of the East; many neo-Nazis from the West have moved East where they see more opportunities for mobilisation. 

Claiming that the AfD will only be successful in the East, but stands no chance in the West, misses the fact that the East has until now been the focus of far right mobilisation efforts. While this is not new, several initiatives of neo-Nazi recruitment in Berlin have recently come to light.

The Tagesspiegel reported that on July 13th, 20-30 neo-Nazis gathered in a state park in Lichtenberg for martial arts training, which the police reported included knives, quartz-enforced gloves and pepper spray. According to the Tagesspiegel, at least some of the members were seen wearing Der Dritte Weg shirts, and some local antifascist groups claim that these trainings have been taking place in the park for years.

In Pankow similar trainings have reportedly taken place since at least October 2023, again members from Der Dritte Weg and NRJ are present. The participants meet twice a week in a gym located behind a local school. 

Concerningly, when Koçak asked through parliamentary inquiry what information the city had on how widespread these trainings were, Berlin’s State Secretary for the Interior Christian Hochgrebe answered that police were not collecting data which could answer the question. It is quite plausible, if not likely, that there are many more regular training sessions happening that simply have not been reported on.

While these trainings seem designed for some future violent confrontations, their locations – in public parks and gyms behind schools – also suggests that they act as recruitment tools for young potential fascists. 

The focus on schools as recruitment grounds came up in another parliamentary inquiry by Koçak, who asked the city’s government about the NRJ’s presence at schools. In Hochgrebe’s response, he stated that “the III. Weg through [the NRJ] have been regularly distributing information material in front of schools in Berlin and its surrounding areas as part of their schoolyard campaign [Schulhofkampagne] since 2023, and publishing posts about it on their homepage.” 

Hochgrebe’s response goes on to report that incidents of far right flyers, graffiti, and stickers has been increasing. 2023 saw 57 reported incidents (exactly how they’re reported is unclear) and the first half of 2024 saw 35 incidents ranging from incitement to hatred (Volksverhetzung) to propaganda of a banned right-wing organisation.

While the AfD increases its electoral victories, and shifts the mainstream political parties further towards its positions, Der Dritte Weg is building its cadre of trained, militant neo-Nazis. 

While the AfD’s goals are clear, looking at the preparatory steps Der Dritte Weg is taking – increased propaganda output, military-style sports trainings – the question that hangs over it all is clear: preparation for what?