From the small stage of a pub in a wooded town of eastern Germany, the right-wing ideologue Björn Höcke regaled a crowd of followers late last year with the tale of his imminent trial.
He faced charges for saying “Everything for Germany” at a political rally — breaking German laws against uttering Nazi slogans.
Despite that approaching court date, he looked down at the crowd, and gestured to them with an impish grin.
After a decade of testing the boundaries of political speech in Germany, Mr. Höcke, a leader of the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, no longer needed to push the limits himself.
That moment crystallizes why, to his critics, Mr. Höcke is not simply a challenge to the political order, but a threat to German democracy itself.
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