extremism
Maaßen calls Ramelow and the Left left-wing extremist
Hans-Georg Maaßen (CDU), former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, sits as a witness in the investigative committee in the Thuringian state parliament. photo
© Martin Schutt/dpa
Former Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and CDU member Maaßen is also being criticized within his own party for several controversial statements. Now he is dishing it out again against Thuringia’s Prime Minister.
The former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen described Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow and his party Die Linke as left-wing extremists in an investigative committee. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution was very concerned about left-wing extremism during his time as president of the authority, “since left-wing extremists ruled in this country with Bodo Ramelow and his party,” said Maaßen on Tuesday in a meeting of the investigative committee on political violent crime in the Thuringian state parliament.
Maaßen was President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution between mid-2012 and autumn 2018. Ramelow was elected in 2014 as the first and so far only left-wing Prime Minister in Germany. Since then he has been head of government in Thuringia with a short interruption.
Maaßen also criticized the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Stephan Kramer. After the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU) was exposed, the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia was in a below-average position compared to the rest of the country. “From my perspective, the whole thing was made worse by the fact that the management of the state agency for the protection of the constitution was transferred to Stephan Kramer, a person who does not have the necessary professional qualifications to lead a state agency,” said Maaßen.
The left-wing MP Katharina König-Preuss then requested an adjournment of the meeting. The state government and Kramer were discredited.
Maaßen’s legal counsel on the investigative committee justified the statements: It was an expression of opinion that was fact-based. In addition, Maaßen could provide information from his own experience regarding the competencies of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution.