A leading member of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party with ambitions for higher office went on trial on Thursday for using a banned Nazi slogan, as hundreds demonstrated outside the courtroom against his party’s policies. The AfD chairman in the state of Thuringia, Björn Höcke, was in a regional court in the eastern city of Halle to face allegations that he knowingly used a banned slogan of the Storm Troopers (SA), the Nazi paramilitary fighting organization, during a speech in 2021. A controversial figure within the AfD, Höcke is formally charged with using symbols of un…