Björn Höcke, leader of the AfD’s Thuringia branch, has consistently defended three former party members who are defendants in the case involving the so-called “Saxon Separatists” (Sächsische Separatisten). Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor accuses members of the group of involvement in a far-right terrorist organization and of preparing violent acts against the constitutional order of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Since 2025, Höcke has publicly questioned the basis of the allegations against the three defendants, called for them to receive legal and political support, and advocated their return to the AfD with full party rights restored. He described the party’s decision to exclude them as a mistake.
Formally, this position can be presented as a defense of the presumption of innocence. Its political significance, however, is broader. Höcke is not limiting himself to demanding a fair judicial process for the accused; in effect, he is calling for their political rehabilitation and reintegration into the AfD before the proceedings have concluded. This makes his position an indicator of the radical wing’s attitude toward the broader far-right milieu.
According to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s case, the “Saxon Separatists” believed that the German state was approaching an inevitable collapse, after which a so-called “Day X” would arrive. Investigators believe members of the group intended to exploit that moment to seize control of parts of Saxony and other areas of eastern Germany by force. Prosecutors say the group’s ideology combined racism, antisemitism, rejection of democratic government, and an orientation toward a social model compatible with National Socialist ideas.
The political problem for the AfD therefore goes beyond the fact that individual party members became defendants in a high-profile criminal case. More significant is that one of the party’s most influential figures is attempting to reduce the political cost of links to a milieu that federal law-enforcement authorities regard as potentially terrorist.
This may indicate a gradual shift in the boundaries of what is considered acceptable within the AfD’s radical wing: association with a milieu that accepts the violent transformation of the political system no longer automatically constitutes grounds for a definitive political break. Instead, such individuals can potentially be portrayed as victims of state persecution, while criminal proceedings against them can be reframed as an instrument of political struggle against the opposition.
The contrast between the AfD’s initial reaction and Höcke’s position is particularly revealing. After the arrests, the party distanced itself from the defendants and moved against members associated with the case in an effort to minimize reputational and legal risks. Höcke’s demand that these decisions be reversed points in the opposite direction—from institutional distancing from the far-right underground toward its political normalization.
Höcke’s position should therefore be assessed as an indicator of growing tolerance among parts of the AfD leadership toward individuals and milieus that German law-enforcement authorities associate with violent far-right extremism.
If this trend becomes entrenched, it would create three interconnected risks for Germany. First, the normalization of political violence: the boundary between parliamentary radicalism and extra-parliamentary extremism becomes less distinct when individuals suspected of preparing politically motivated violence can expect political protection from influential party figures. Second, the creation of a protective political environment for far-right networks: public support from prominent politicians can provide such milieus with legitimacy, access to supporters, and a narrative portraying criminal investigations as state repression. Third, it could strengthen the arguments of Germany’s constitutional-protection authorities when assessing the extent to which radical AfD structures genuinely distance themselves from anti-constitutional ideas and political violence.
The “Saxon Separatists” case therefore has significance far beyond the criminal proceedings against specific individuals. It is becoming a test of the boundary between parliamentary far-right politics and violent extremism in Germany. Höcke’s effort to rehabilitate the defendants within the party points to the risk that at least part of the AfD seeks not to reinforce that boundary, but gradually to erode it.
The principal risk indicator is not simply that extremists may have been present among party members, but that influential party leaders may be prepared to politically rehabilitate them after law-enforcement authorities have identified an alleged connection to violent anti-constitutional activity.
The available facts do not make it possible to establish Björn Höcke’s personal motives with certainty. His objectives are therefore better assessed through behavioral indicators, political benefits, and the consistency of his actions. Taken together, these indicators suggest that his campaign extends beyond a conventional defense of the presumption of innocence.
The most likely objective is not merely to defend specific defendants, but to prevent the establishment of a political “red line” between the AfD’s radical wing and the broader far-right milieu in eastern Germany. This would preserve that milieu as part of the party’s potential political and mobilization base.
Several factors support this assessment. Höcke has attempted to change the interpretation of the case itself. In June 2025, he publicly suggested that the “Saxon Separatists” case, like the Reichsbürger case surrounding Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, might have been staged by “interested circles” to obstruct political rapprochement between the CDU and the AfD. He thereby shifted the issue from the criminal-security sphere into a narrative of political persecution of the AfD.
This reframing is significant: if the defendants are portrayed not as potential extremists but as victims of politically motivated state action, their restoration to the party environment becomes a logical component of that interpretation.
The case does not concern peripheral AfD sympathizers but people who were integrated into party structures. According to Die Zeit, three defendants were AfD members; one served as the state treasurer of the party’s youth organization, was a member of the Grimma city council, and worked for a member of the Saxon state parliament. Several defendants had been photographed with prominent AfD politicians, including Höcke.
A complete political break with them would therefore establish an uncomfortable precedent for the radical wing: association with an extremist milieu would automatically render a person unacceptable to the AfD. Höcke may be seeking to prevent precisely such a norm from taking hold.
This can also be understood as a struggle over the boundaries of the AfD itself. Saxony’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution has described the state AfD as dominated by a “solidarity-patriotic” current rooted in the former Flügel, with Höcke serving as its ideological leader.
From this perspective, the “Saxon Separatists” case presents Höcke with a strategic dilemma. If the party repeatedly abandons activists once links to radical milieus are uncovered, the federal leadership effectively gains a mechanism for gradually removing from the AfD part of the environment on which the Flügel tradition has relied.
Another probable objective is consolidation of the radical electorate. Höcke may be sending supporters a message: “The party will not abandon you when the state labels you extremists.”
This can be a powerful mobilizing message for parts of the far-right milieu. It reinforces Höcke’s image as a politician who refuses to submit to pressure from federal institutions and who protects his supporters.
Notably, Höcke has not demonstrated a principled opposition to the expulsion of AfD members. In other internal party conflicts, he himself has sought the removal of opponents. His defense of the defendants in this case is therefore difficult to explain solely as a general objection to party sanctions.
Delegitimization of State Institutions
The campaign also fits a broader political narrative:
the state persecutes the AfD → the security services are politicized → criminal cases against the right may be fabricated → the democratic institutions of the Federal Republic are not neutral.
If this framing becomes entrenched among voters, future actions by prosecutors or the Verfassungsschutz against radical structures can be presented not as law enforcement but as repression by the political system against the opposition.
This is particularly relevant given the status of the Thuringia AfD: the Thuringian authorities have confirmed that the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies it as a proven right-wing extremist endeavor (erwiesen rechtsextremistische Bestrebung).
Protecting the AfD’s Political Reserve in Eastern Germany
According to federal prosecutors, the “Saxon Separatists” were not simply a group of people holding radical views. The indictment concerns membership in a terrorist organization and preparations for anti-state actions. Prosecutors allege that the group prepared for “Day X,” conducted paramilitary training, and intended to exploit the expected collapse of state order to establish control over territory.
Political protection of such defendants therefore carries a different significance from the defense of party members suspected, for example, of financial or administrative violations.
It may reflect an effort to keep channels open between the parliamentary AfD and a substantially more radical extra-parliamentary milieu, even when some of its representatives cross the threshold that law-enforcement authorities interpret as preparation for political violence.
As of the beginning of the trial in January 2026, Die Zeit reported that the three defendants formally remained AfD members but had been stripped of their membership rights. Their final expulsion depended on the relevant party procedure. It is therefore more precise and legally safer to describe Höcke’s position as a demand for their internal party rehabilitation and restoration of membership rights rather than simply as a demand to “return expelled members.”
Key Judgment
Björn Höcke’s campaign in defense of the defendants in the “Saxon Separatists” case likely pursues a more strategic objective than protecting three party members. It appears aimed at preventing the formation of a rigid boundary between the AfD and the radical far-right milieu, preserving that milieu as a mobilization resource, and simultaneously constructing a narrative of politically motivated state persecution of the right-wing opposition.
Signs of Foreign—Primarily Russian—Influence
There are signs of foreign—primarily Russian—influence on the broader radical milieu surrounding the AfD, but two levels must be clearly distinguished. There is currently no publicly confirmed evidence that Moscow exercised operational control over the “Saxon Separatists,” financed them, supplied them with weapons, or assigned them tasks. By contrast, the Russian connection is considerably better documented within the political and information environment with which some defendants overlapped. The federal indictment describes the group as a domestic German far-right organization that had emerged no later than November 2020.
The strongest indicator is the Russian contacts of the Saxony AfD.
The 2025 report of Saxony’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution includes a separate section titled “Kontakte ins Ausland” concerning AfD Sachsen. The agency states that senior representatives of the state party repeatedly traveled to Russia and met influential Russian figures, including Alexander Dugin, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, and State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky. The agency also records the systematic dissemination by the Saxony AfD of Russian narratives concerning the war against Ukraine and NATO.
This is relevant to the “Saxon Separatists” case because several defendants were members of AfD Sachsen or Junge Alternative, while two worked for an AfD member of the Saxon state parliament. There is therefore a structural overlap between two environments: AfD ↔ far-right networks and AfD ↔ Russian political contacts. Saxony’s LfV also records continuing AfD contacts with other far-right organizations and individuals.
The formula Russia → AfD → Saxon Separatists would nevertheless be too categorical on the available evidence. A more supportable model is:
Russia ↔ parts of AfD Sachsen ↔ broader far-right milieu ↔ individual members of the Saxon Separatists.
There is also clear ideological complementarity, although this is less probative of an organizational connection and is primarily relevant to threat assessment.
According to prosecutors, the “Saxon Separatists” believed Germany was approaching collapse and intended, after the arrival of “Day X,” to use force to establish control over territories in eastern Germany.
“Day X” and the Broader German Far-Right Milieu
The “Day X” / “Tag X” concept in the “Saxon Separatists” case closely corresponds to the broader ideology of Germany’s far-right milieu. Indeed, this is one of the most important aspects of the case: the “Saxon Separatists” did not invent the expectation of state collapse. Rather, they appear to have transformed an already established scenario in German far-right circles into a more concrete program of preparation for territorial seizure.
“Tag X” is an established narrative within German right-wing extremism.
The German federal government has stated in a response to the Bundestag that “Tag X” scenarios are among narratives circulating among right-wing extremists. Such scenarios have included the overthrow of the government and parliamentary democracy, kidnapping or “arresting” politicians, seizing the Reichstag and other state institutions, controlling the media, and, in some cases, sabotaging critical infrastructure.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has described “Tag X” more specifically as an imagined moment marking the beginning of an “open struggle against the democratic constitutional state” and a “national revolution.” It is therefore not merely a prepper scenario for surviving a catastrophe, but a potential political model for moving from anticipation of crisis to a struggle for power.
Within far-right ideology, “Day X” therefore functions as a transition mechanism:
crisis → state collapse → power vacuum → violence → seizure of control → creation of a new political order.
The “Saxon Separatists” reproduce this model almost literally.
According to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s indictment, members of the group believed Germany was inevitably approaching a “collapse” that, on an unspecified “Tag X,” would destroy the existing state and social order.
Saxony’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution states that the group intended to use this moment to seize territories in Saxony and potentially other eastern German states by force and establish a political system oriented toward National Socialism. Investigators allege that members conducted paramilitary training, including urban combat exercises, weapons handling, night marches and patrols, and acquired military equipment.
Their “Day X” was therefore not merely a prediction of catastrophe. According to the prosecution, it represented an operational window of opportunity.
The Most Important Precedent: Nordkreuz/Hannibal
There is a particularly important historical parallel.
The far-right prepper milieu surrounding Nordkreuz/Hannibal also prepared for “Day X”—a future moment when state order would collapse. Participants established protected communication channels, identified assembly points, accumulated weapons and ammunition, and, according to investigative reporting, discussed actions against political opponents.
Federal security reporting has likewise linked investigations into prepper groups to preparations for a “Tag X” in which state order was expected to disintegrate.
A conceptual continuity can therefore be identified:
Nordkreuz/Hannibal → prepper/military networks → Tag X → collapse → elimination of enemies
Saxon Separatists → accelerationism → Tag X → territorial seizure → ethnic cleansing → new authoritarian order.
This does not establish an organizational link between the networks. The ideological and operational similarities, however, are substantial.
Reichsbürger Use a Very Similar Model
Another component of this ecosystem is the Reichsbürger/Selbstverwalter movement.
Within this milieu, there has long been an expectation that the contemporary Federal Republic will lose control, creating an opportunity to establish an alternative order. The BfV’s 2025 reporting notes that among Reichsbürger adherents linked to QAnon and other radical conspiracy narratives, expectations of an apocalyptic “Tag X” are recurrent.
In more radical variants, “Day X” becomes a moment for settling accounts with those considered “enemies” or “traitors.”
Reichsbürger, parts of the prepper milieu, neo-Nazi networks, and the “Saxon Separatists” therefore share a basic ideological structure:
the existing state is illegitimate → the system is doomed → crisis is inevitable → its collapse will create an opportunity to build a different order.
The “Saxon Separatists,” However, Go a Significant Step Further
This is the central analytical distinction.
An ordinary radical prepper may prepare to survive “Day X.”
A Reichsbürger adherent may expect the current Federal Republic to disappear after it.
A violent accelerationist seeks to exploit—or even accelerate—the crisis in order to destroy the existing system.
Saxony’s LfV explicitly describes the ideology of the “Saxon Separatists” as characteristic of far-right accelerationists and adherents of “Siege” ideology, highlighting racist, antisemitic, and partly apocalyptic elements.
This distinction is fundamental.
In the classic “Tag X” scenario:
“We are waiting for the system to collapse.”
In the accelerationist version:
“The system will collapse; we must be organized, armed, and ready to exploit it.”
In the most extreme version:
“We must help the system collapse.”
The transition between the second and third levels is one of the key indicators of a potential terrorist threat.
“Day X” and the Psychological Legitimation of Violence
The concept also performs another important function.
An extremist does not need to view himself as the initiator of civil war. He can believe that conflict will inevitably be started by someone else—the government, migrants, the left, NATO, “globalists,” or other constructed enemies.
Within this worldview, the extremist’s own violence can then be reframed not as aggression but as:
self-defense → restoration of order → defense of the community → national rebirth.
This is what makes “Day X” a dangerous mechanism of radicalization: it can transform political violence into an action that appears morally legitimate in the extremist’s own perception.
The Territorial Dimension of the “Saxon Separatists”
One feature makes the case more serious than abstract discussion about the collapse of the Federal Republic.
According to the prosecution, the alleged plan involved not simply overthrowing the government, but separating substantial territories in eastern Germany and establishing a new political regime there. Prosecutors described a plan to transform captured territory into a state entity modeled on National Socialism.
This narrative is also compatible with a Russian information model that portrays Western democracies as states disintegrating under the pressure of migration, economic crisis, the war in Ukraine, and conflict between “elites” and the population.
Ideological convergence by itself does not demonstrate that the ideas of the “Saxon Separatists” originated in Russia. Germany’s far-right movement has its own long tradition of anti-state and apocalyptic concepts. Moscow can, however, amplify precisely those beliefs that facilitate radicalization: that the state is illegitimate, democracy is doomed, the West is approaching collapse, and violent transformation of the political order is inevitable.
Russia already conducts operations that objectively benefit the AfD.
In August 2026, Reuters, citing German security sources, reported an intensification of Russian disinformation operations ahead of state elections. The campaigns targeted political competitors of the AfD and sought to polarize German society and discredit the CDU, SPD, Greens, and FDP. German security sources assessed these operations as centrally organized from Russia.
The Financial Times also reported that the Russian “Matryoshka” operation disseminated fabricated compromising material targeting German politicians, while German security authorities assessed the campaign as politically beneficial to the AfD.
This makes it possible to speak not merely of ideological affinity but of external information activity that creates a more favorable political environment for the AfD.
There Is, However, No Evidence of Russian Control over the “Saxon Separatists”
Public prosecution materials do not allege Russian financing, Russian handlers, weapons supplies, training in Russia, or instructions from Russian intelligence services. The prosecution’s description points primarily to a homegrown extremist organization: the group formed inside Germany, conducted its own training, and acquired military equipment.
Accordingly, the claim that the “Saxon Separatists” are a Russian proxy is not supported by the currently available public evidence.
A model of indirect influence is considerably more relevant:
Russian state/influence ecosystem → AfD/right-wing information environment → delegitimization of German institutions → radicalization → autonomous violent actors.
Such a model does not require a Russian intelligence service to create or control a specific terrorist group. For an adversarial state, a sufficient outcome may be increased polarization, declining trust in the federal government, NATO, and the EU, and the creation of an environment in which domestic radical forces act autonomously.
The Russian factor may therefore function as a catalyst rather than a command center.
Key Judgment
Open sources currently do not confirm that the “Saxon Separatists” were created, financed, or operationally controlled by Russia. At the same time, the case is unfolding within the far-right ecosystem of eastern Germany, parts of whose political environment have documented contacts with Russian representatives and disseminate narratives aligned with those promoted by the Kremlin. The principal risk therefore lies not necessarily in direct Russian control of a specific group, but in the capacity of Russian influence operations to create information and political conditions that intensify domestic radicalization and the delegitimization of Germany’s democratic institutions.
More on this story: AfD, Russian Influence, and the Growing Risk of Ethnic Polarization in Germany
