The Values Union around the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, has founded a party. Several participants in the founding meeting confirmed that the party had been founded. “Hans-Georg Maaßen unanimously elected party chairman,” he wrote himself on X.
Maaßen and his supporters had gathered on a ship on the Rhine near Remagen behind closed doors. The right-wing conservative association ValuesUnion, which has long been close to the CDU, made preparations for the founding of the party in January at a general meeting in Erfurt.
A later party conference “will of course be public,” a party spokesman said. He justified the secrecy with public pressure: Originally, a press conference was planned immediately after the founding act. However, “in view of announced protests,” this was not done.
The Maaßen Party is the second prominent new formation in 2024. At the beginning of the year, the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance of the former left-wing politician had already formed as a party. According to representatives of the ValuesUnion, the new party will run in the state elections in September in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, but not in the European elections in June.
Maaßen: between the Union and the AfD
In an interview broadcast on Friday evening, Maaßen told broadcaster tv.berlin that the Values Union wanted to fill the gap between the classic CDU/CSU, which has left the path, and the AfD, which has become radical. “We stand for classic bourgeois values that have made Germany strong and ultimately shaped the CDU.” The Values Union is for freedom, the rule of law, democracy, tolerance, but also for the state to withdraw from people’s lives.
Maaßen, against whom the CDU executive board initiated expulsion proceedings in 2023, resigned from the CDU in January. He recently made it public that his former employer, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, labeled him as a right-wing extremist.
The Values Union around the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, has founded a party. Several participants in the founding meeting confirmed that the party had been founded. “Hans-Georg Maaßen unanimously elected party chairman,” he wrote himself on X.
Maaßen and his supporters had gathered on a ship on the Rhine near Remagen behind closed doors. The right-wing conservative association ValuesUnion, which has long been close to the CDU, made preparations for the founding of the party in January at a general meeting in Erfurt.