parties
After the Maassen decision: CDU leadership discusses how to proceed
The CDU is fighting for Hans-Georg Maassen’s party membership. photo
© Heiko Rebsch/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
Maassen, the former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, repeatedly stands out with controversial statements. The CDU leadership wants to throw him out of the party and fails for the time being. An appeal to Friedrich Merz comes from the SPD.
The top committees of the Christian Democrats want to deal with the decision of a district party court today, which would exclude the ex-Bundesverfassungsschutz President Hans-Georg Maassen refused. Accordingly, he should get his membership rights back.
The district party court issued a “reference” to Maassen for a guest article in the magazine “Die Weltwoche”. It accuses him of assigning a “left wing of the CDU” to an “ideology of the so-called anti-Germans in the left-wing parties”. According to the federal CDU, an appeal can be lodged against the decision – then the state party court in Thuringia would be the next instance. If, in turn, an appeal were filed against his decision, the Federal Party Court would have to decide.
CDU spokeswoman: advise further steps after careful examination
A spokeswoman for the federal CDU announced careful consultations. “Today, the tenor of the decision of the joint district party court of the CDU Thuringia was sent to our authorized representative,” she said. “We have not yet been informed of the reasons for the decision.” The committees would now be informed. “After receiving and carefully examining the reasons for the decision, the Presidium and the Federal Executive Board will discuss further steps.”
Maassen, who has been a member of the CDU for many years, is the head of the Union of Values, which is considered to be particularly conservative, but which is not a party organization. In the 2021 federal election, he ran in a constituency in southern Thuringia, but failed.
Maassen is not just any member of the CDU, said the first parliamentary director of the SPD parliamentary group, Katja Mast, to the German Press Agency in Berlin. “He ran for the CDU for the Bundestag. He has long since broken through the much-vaunted firewall against the right and with him his local party. I expect that CDU leader Merz will not let it go.”