What Björn Höcke inherited

Germany successfully integrated millions of expelled Germans after 1945. But the political memory of those lost homelands never disappeared entirely.

Dear Reader,

This week much of Germany has been talking about an interview that Björn Höcke gave to a podcast that, until recently, was almost entirely unknown outside a niche online audience.

Since appearing online, the interview has been watched more than four million times — an extraordinary figure in Germany, even allowing for repeat views and people dipping in and out of a four-hour conversation. Ironically, part of the reason it spread so widely is that Der Spiegel, the country’s largest liberal outlet, published an outraged article condemning the fact that Höcke had been allowed to speak at such length without being aggressively challenged throughout.

Höcke occupies a uniquely toxic position within German public life. He has been convicted of knowingly using a banned Nazi slogan during a public speech, and even conservative media outlets that tentatively engage with the AfD treat him as beyond the pale.

But it was probably inevitable that this barrier would eventually break.

The pod…