parties
After the Maassen decision: Mast takes Merz to task
“I expect that CDU boss Merz won’t let it go,” says Katja Mast about Hans-Georg Maassen’s rejected exclusion from the CDU. photo
© Bernd von Jutrczenka/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 first parliamentary director of the SPD parliamentary group, Katja Mast, takes one after the decision CDU district party court in Thuringia not to exclude the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, from the party.
Maassen is not just any CDU member, Mast told 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.”
A CDU district party court in Thuringia had previously rejected Maassen’s exclusion from the CDU. The federal CDU announced a careful examination. 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.
Maassen was also heavily criticized in his own party for several controversial statements – for example, because of claims in a tweet that the thrust of the “driving forces in the political and media space” was “eliminatory racism against whites”.