The Bavarian Administrative Court has decided that two German towns were wrong to issue speaking bans for a leading representative of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD).
Late on 13 February the court – the highest instance in administrative matters in the state of Bavaria – ruled that the speaking bans for right-winger Bernd Höcke at two AfD rallies over the weekend were unlawful.
The court wrote: “The reasons given by the municipalities [who issued the ban] cannot justify banning Björn Höcke from speaking. The municipalities did not provide sufficient concrete evidence that the guest speaker could be expected to break the law by committing criminal or administrative offences.”
The decision is final and cannot be appealed.
The mayors of the two towns – Seybothenreuth in Franconia and Lindenberg in Swabia – have now turned to politics for help. Lindenberg mayor Eric Ballerstedt (Christian Democrats) said: “The new legal provisions have proved to be a blunt sword.”
Both speaking bans had been based on a recent amendment of the Bavarian Municipal Code which entered into effect only on January 1, 2026 and allows municipalities to ban people from using public buildings for events “where content that glorifies National Socialist rule or anti-Semitic content is to be expected”.
Previously, the two municipalities had both tried to ban Höcke from speaking at AfD campaign rallies on February 14 and 15. One of the bans was upheld by a lower administrative court.
Höcke is a representative of the right-wing of AfD who is often accused of spreading ethno-nationalist and extremist ideology, earning him exceptional dislike from the German establishment media and politics.
Höcke himself had announced that he would speak at both events regardless of any ban or court ruling.
In a post on X on 13 February Höcke wrote: “Speaking bans for opposition politicians? You’re funny! Well, then I will definitely come by!”
On 17 February Höcke shared a recording of his “almost not held” speech in Lindenberg in which he covered a wide array of topics from immigration to the destruction of German landscapes by wind turbines, asking rhetorically: “Can you maybe also lose your homeland by having it destroyed and disfigured so much that you cannot identify with it anymore? And could this be intended?”
While Höcke was holding his speeches, thousands of anti-AfD protesters congregated on both towns.
In Lindenberg (11,500 inhabitants) circa 3,500 demonstrators marched through the streets on February 15 while the previous day around 300 protesters had converged on rural Seybothenreuth.
