(FILES) This file photo taken on September 15, 2014 shows then Alternative fuer Deutschland party's (AfD) main candidate in Thuringia Bjoern Hoecke arriving at a press conference in Berlin, following regional elections in the German states of Brandenburg and Thuringia. Hoecke, a leading member of German anti-immigration party AfD (Alternative fuer Deutschland), sparked an outcry on January 18, 2017 over his criticism of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin and calls to stop focusing on the country's Nazi past. "Up to now, our state of mind is still one of a totally defeated people... We Germans, our people, are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of the capital," Bjoern Hoecke told party faithful including youth members, according to a video of the speech circulated online. / AFP PHOTO / JOHN MACDOUGALL