The public prosecutor’s office in Bamberg is investigating the Bamberg CSU functionary Stefan Düring on charges of publicly inciting criminals to commit crimes. A spokesman confirmed this when asked. Düring, secretary and digital officer in the Bamberg local branch of Wunderburg/Gereuth, wrote in a comment on Facebook in connection with the shutdown of the last remaining nuclear power plants in Germany: “Order 66 for the Greens!” This is an order from the “Star Wars” series that calls for the destruction of the Jedis, who are said to have betrayed the Empire. The public prosecutor’s office then launched an investigation.
Düring, whose position as digital officer is suspended until further notice, left an SZ request unanswered on Tuesday, unlike Gerhard Seitz. The new Bamberg CSU district chairman calls on Düring to resign. “I suggest that he resign,” he says. Seitz only took over the post from his predecessor Wolfgang Heim at the end of March and, in view of various verbal abuses by party colleagues in the past, emphasized that there was no place for racism and hate speech in the Bamberg CSU. However, after the investigation became known, he now has to deal with the latter: he calls Düring’s statements “unspeakable” and “out of the question”.
Europe Minister Melanie Huml, who is also a member of the CSU state parliament for the constituency of Bamberg and at least deputy party chairwoman, emphasized when asked by the SZ that racism and extremism should have no place in the CSU and in society, so she “continues to work at all levels for Tolerance and openness. We as Bamberg CSU would like Stefan Düring to resign from his offices in the local association.”
For the Bamberg CSU, the investigations against the politically rather insignificant official mean the preliminary climax of a development that has been going on for some time. The ex-district chairman Wolfgang Heim, for example, compared the Greens politician Leonie Pathenhauer to a toad, while his party friend and former district manager Florian Köhn made disparaging comments about transgender people. Most recently, it was Düring himself who was criticized for various Facebook posts: among other things, he had suggested that the Skilled Immigration Act passed by the federal government would make it easier for terrorists to enter Germany.
However, the investigations against Düring are not the first of this kind. As early as 2021, he received an omission, a payment of 700 euros for pain and suffering and a penalty order of 4000 euros after he accused Thomas Pregl, the chairman of the SPD local branch in Ellertal ( District of Bamberg) on Facebook as right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic and compared him to Adolf Eichmann, who is considered the organizer of the Holocaust.
“To me, he’s just not a Democrat anymore.”
Pregl therefore describes the CSU man Düring as a “repeat offender who shows no insight at all”. He accuses him of the posts being deliberate actions. “To me, he’s just not a Democrat anymore.” Pregl calls on the CSU to initiate party exclusion proceedings against Düring. He knows from his own experience in the SPD (the Schröder and Sarrazin cases should be mentioned) that this is difficult, but refers to paragraph 10 of the party law, which states: A member can be expelled from the party if they intentionally violate violates the statutes or significantly violates the principles or rules of the party and thus causes it serious damage. If you don’t exclude a member from a call for murder, then he doesn’t know what the party law is supposed to do, says Pregl.
The CSU district chairman Seitz currently considers a party expulsion to be unrealistic. He wants to wait for the results of the investigation first. Maybe Düring will preempt the exclusion anyway with a resignation. On Thursday, the local branch of Wunderburg/Gereuth wants to deal with his case again.