New right-wing party
The Maaßen Union of Values was officially founded – without the public
The values union around Maaßen (centre) met in Remagen on the Rhine to found a party. According to a DPA reporter, Maaßen and around 20 supporters boarded the excursion ship Godesia, which then set off
© Thomas Banneyer / DPA
Maaßen and the CDU – that is history. Now the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution wants to do politics himself with the Union of Values party. But the field to the right of the Union is contested.
The union of values around the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Hans-Georg Maaßen has founded a party and wants to recruit voters to the right of the CDU/CSU. Several participants in the founding meeting confirmed to the German Press Agency on Saturday that the party had been founded. For this purpose, Maaßen and his supporters gathered on an excursion boat on the Rhine near Remagen. The event took place behind closed doors. A later party conference “will of course be public,” explained a spokesman.
According to previous information, a statute and a program should also be decided. The 61-year-old Maaßen says he wants to run for party leadership. According to the information, a press conference was originally planned following the founding act. However, “in view of announced protests,” the party decided not to do so. Maaßen will appear in front of the press after the founding meeting ends at around 5 p.m. The location should therefore only be announced shortly beforehand.
Maaßen: “Stand for classic bourgeois values”
The conservative Values Union association, which has long been close to the CDU, set the course for the founding of the party in January at a general meeting in Erfurt by transferring the naming rights. The Maaßen Party is the second prominent new formation in 2024. First, the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance of the former left-wing politician was formed as a party. According to Maaßen, the Union of Values should compete in the state elections in September in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, but not in the European elections in June.
In an interview broadcast on Friday evening, Maaßen told broadcaster tv.berlin that the Union of Values wanted to fill the gap between the classic CDU/CSU, which had abandoned the path, and the AfD, which had become radical. “We stand for classic bourgeois values that have made Germany strong and that ultimately shaped the CDU.” The Union of Values is for freedom, the rule of law, democracy, tolerance, but also for the state to withdraw from people’s lives. “We would like to address the critical bourgeoisie, from the conservatives to the market and national liberals, the libertarians (…) to the classic social democrats, who represented a social democracy like Helmut Schmidt,” said Maaßen.
Saved as right-wing extremist
From scandal to scandal to heading the Office for the Protection of the Constitution: The career of Hans-Georg Maaßen
Maaßen resigned from the CDU
The CDU executive board initiated expulsion proceedings against Maaßen last year – in January Maaßen himself resigned from the CDU. Maaßen was President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) from 2012 to 2018. The then Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer (CSU) sent him into temporary retirement in November 2018. The reasons for this decision included Maaßen’s statements about riots in Chemnitz as well as a speech manuscript by the then head of the authority, which spoke of “left-wing radical forces in the SPD” with a view to the former coalition partner. A few days ago it became known that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution was keeping an eye on Maaßen. As can be seen from a letter that Maaßen himself published, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution stored data on Maaßen in the authority’s information system in the area of right-wing extremism.
In the political spectrum between the Union and the AfD, several smaller parties are already recruiting voters. This includes the small party Alliance Germany, founded in 2022, which represents conservative positions and emphasizes the national. The We Citizens party has fewer than 700 members. It includes some former AfD members who, together with Bernd Lucke, left the AfD in 2015 because it had become too radical for them. The party was initially called Alfa and then temporarily Liberal-Conservative Reformer (LKR).
Union of Values and AfD with similar programs
The draft for the founding program of the Union of Values contains some statements that are also found in a similar form in the basic program of the AfD. “We are in favor of dismantling the party state and expanding the rule of the people, including through the introduction of plebiscitary elements such as the referendum,” says the draft of the Union of Values. The AfD writes: “We want to give the people the right to vote on laws passed by parliament.” The Union of Values wants children “to be protected from early sexualization and gender ideology, especially in daycare centers and schools.” The AfD calls for “no early sexualization in crèches, kindergartens and schools and for children to stop becoming insecure about their sexual identity.”
According to reports, Maaßen and his colleagues had held discussions in recent months about possible cooperation with representatives of several right-wing conservative parties and movements as well as with individual elected officials. So far, however, it doesn’t look as if this will soon result in a larger alliance.