GETTY A Pegida leader is facing trial for incitement after allegedly calling foreigners "trash" online

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Lutz Bachmann was charged with incitement over the controversial social media posts. Prosecutors said the posts were an attempt to incite Germans against refugees. The Pegida leader wrote on Facebook he would face trial in Dresden on April 19, which was confirmed by the district court.

Bachmann, who co-founded Pegida, disputes the social media posts and wrote that the trial was “purely politically motivated” in order to discredit him and his group. The Pediga frontman had previously stepped down after posting a picture of him posing with an Adolf Hitler moustache went viral.

IG The Pegida leader faced a backlash after posting as Hitler in a picture

Lutz Bachmann was charged with incitement

The 43-year-old put the image online after a session at his hairdresser, complete with a Hitler hairstyle dyed black and parted on the right and a toothbrush moustache. Tensions have been mounting in Germany after more than a million refugees arrived in the country last year alone. Pegida, which has networks throughout Europe, stages weekly protests in Dresden.

GETTY Pegida regularly holds protests in Dresden

The anti-Islam group staged rallies in cities across Europe earlier this month to protest against the arrival of migrants. The movement, whose name stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, has seized on the surge of asylum seekers to warn that Germany risks being overrun by Muslims.

GETTY Mr Bachmann co-founded Pegida in 2014

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