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German Social Democrats try to quell leadership doubts

Germany’s Social Democrats continued to squabble over the direction of their party on Monday. Despite calls to rally behind embattled party chairman Kurt Beck, centrist SPD members urged him to forgo a bid to become chancellor in 2009.

Published: 10 March 2008 10:51 CET

SPD Secretary General Hubertus Heil rejected speculation that Beck might resign at a Social Democratic Party presidium meeting in Berlin on Monday. “We have clear leadership with Kurt Beck at the top,” he told German public broadcaster ZDF, adding that there was no rush to pick the party’s candidate for chancellor for the 2009 general election. “There’s absolutely no need to have that debate right now.”

At the same time, however, Heil admitted the SPD had been put in “not an easy situation” following the inconclusive state election in Hesse in January. Beck has come under immense criticism in recent weeks for allowing Hesse SPD leader Andrea Ypsilanti to try to cobble together a minority government with the backing of the hard-line socialist Left Party.

Beck will try to reassert his authority at the party presidium meeting on Monday after being sidelined with the flu for two weeks. But just how difficult that might be was made apparent by the renewed call from the SPD’s centrist wing for Beck to renounce his intention to become the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor in 2009.

Gerd Andres, head of the SPD’s centrist Seeheimer bloc, told the Monday edition of the daily Hannoverschen Allgemeinen Zeitung that Beck must take personal responsibility for the current crisis surrounding the party. “In my opinion his candidacy for chancellor is no longer an issue since he can’t manage to shake off the crisis of credibility,” Andres told the paper.

The issue of how to deal with the Left Party’s recent encroachment into western German state parliaments has wracked the SPD in recent weeks. After Social Democratic chairman Beck told state SPD party organizations they could forge their own alliances with the Left Party, his leadership has come under fire from more centrist SPD members.

CRIME

German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

A German court has convicted one of the country's most controversial far-right politicians, Björn Höcke, of deliberately using a banned Nazi slogan at a rally.

Published: 15 May 2024 08:43 CEST
German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

The court fined Höcke, 52, of the far-right AfD party, €13,000 for using the phrase “Alles fuer Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”) during a 2021 campaign rally.

Once a motto of the so-called Sturmabteilung paramilitary group that played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the phrase is illegal in modern-day Germany, along with the Nazi salute and other slogans and symbols from that era.

The former high school history teacher claimed not to have been aware that the phrase had been used by the Nazis, telling the court he was “completely not guilty”.

Höcke said he thought the phrase was an “everyday saying”.

But prosecutors argued that Höcke used the phrase in full knowledge of its “origin and meaning”.

They had sought a six-month suspended sentence plus two years’ probation, and a payment of €10,000 to a charitable organisation.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, after the trial, Höcke said the “ability to dissent is in jeopardy”.

“If this verdict stands, free speech will be dead in Germany,” he added.

Höcke, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, is gunning to become Germany’s first far-right state premier when the state holds regional elections in September.

With the court ordering only a fine rather than a jail term, the verdict is not thought to threaten his candidacy at the elections.

‘AfD scandals’

The trial is one of several controversies the AfD is battling ahead of European Parliament elections in June and regional elections in the autumn in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Founded in 2013, the anti-Islam and anti-immigration AfD saw a surge in popularity last year – its 10th anniversary – seizing on concerns over rising migration, high inflation and a stumbling economy.

But its support has wavered since the start of 2024, as it contends with scandals including allegations that senior party members were paid to spread pro-Russian views on a Moscow-financed news website.

Considered an extremist by German intelligence services, Höcke is one of the AfD’s most controversial personalities.

He has called Berlin’s Holocaust monument a “memorial of shame” and urged a “180-degree shift” in the country’s culture of remembrance.

Höcke was convicted of using the banned slogan at an election rally in Merseburg in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the run-up to Germany’s 2021 federal election.

READ ALSO: How worried should Germany be about the far-right AfD after mass deportation scandal?

He had also been due to stand trial on a second charge of shouting “Everything for…” and inciting the audience to reply “Germany” at an AfD meeting in Thuringia in December.

However, the court decided to separate the proceedings for the second charge, announced earlier this month, because the defence had not had enough time to prepare.

Prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen on Friday underlined the reach of Höcke’s statement, saying that a video of it had been clicked on 21,000 times on the Facebook page of AfD Sachsen-Anhalt alone.

Höcke’s defence lawyer Philip Müller argued the rally was an “insignificant campaign event” and that the offending statement was only brought to the public’s notice by the trial.

Germany’s domestic security agency has labelled the AfD in Thuringia a “confirmed” extremist organisation, along with the party’s regional branches in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.

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