Pallade Veneta - Bjoern Hoecke, key leader of Germany's far-right AfD

A former high school history teacher and a father-of-four, 52-year-old Hoecke has emerged as one of the most radical and prominent leaders of the Alternative for Germany party.

His once fringe party won around 33 percent of the vote in the formerly communist eastern state of Thuringia, where he is party leader, and looked to come a close second in neighbouring Saxony.

At national elections a year from now, the AfD hopes to build on its momentum and harness fears about immigration and crime to derail the coalition government of centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

"Filled with pride", Hoecke said Sunday he was "ready to take on the responsibilities of governing".

But despite winning a third of seats in Thuringia's legislature, the AfD is unlikely to come to power, as all the other parties have ruled out teaming up with it to form a governing majority.

Hoecke, a slim man with steely blue eyes who grew up in western Germany, has long courted controversy and is considered a political extremist by Germany's domestic intelligence service.

He has advocated breaking with Germany's culture of repentance for Nazi crimes and once called Berlin's Holocaust monument a "memorial of shame".

He has been one of the AfD's key figures in its decade-long evolution from eurosceptic protest party into a movement with a nationalist and anti-Islam platform that rails against multiculturalism and denies climate change.

In 2020, Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence service, said he judged Hoecke to be a "right-wing extremist".

- Nazi slogan -

At a recent election rally, Hoecke charged that Thuringia had become "a magnet for migrants" and promised the crowd "a major programme to deport illegal immigrants" if elected.

Hoecke also drew cheers from the crowd with a promise of a 10,000-euro ($11,000) bonus for every German baby born in Thuringia and his criticism of environmentalists.

He has also vowed to curtail the powers of the domestic security service and to slash funding for initiatives against right-wing extremism, and for public broadcasters he accuses of seeking to "stigmatise" him.

Hoecke was fined twice this year for using a banned Nazi slogan, the phrase "Alles fuer Deutschland" (Everything for Germany).

A motto of the Sturmabteilung paramilitary group that played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the phrase is illegal in Germany, along with the Nazi salute and other slogans and symbols from that era.

At the opening of his trial, Hoecke insisted the phrase consisted of "commonplace words that happened to be used by a criminal organisation" and branded the proceedings a "farce".

On Sunday, with a smile on his face and his arms in the air, he savoured the AfD victory in front of a restaurant in the state capital Erfurt, where his party had barred journalists from its celebration.

Its record electoral gains in Thuringia and Saxony are certain to give the AfD the power to veto certain government policies.

Hoecke cautioned the other parties against shutting out the AfD, declaring: "I can only warn against this. Anyone who wants stable conditions in Thuringia must integrate the AfD."

J.Lubrano--PV