The CDU leadership wanted to throw the former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution out of the party because Maassen kept making controversial statements. The district party court in Thuringia now rejected the exclusion.
The former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, may remain a member of the CDU. The district party court of the CDU in Thuringia rejected an application for exclusion from the party. This emerges from the decision of the committee, which was disseminated from Maaßen’s environment and is available in various media. The provisional withdrawal of Maassen’s membership rights will also be lifted.
Criticism after the Maassen interview
The CDU federal executive had applied for the exclusion. Party leader Friedrich Merz said in February that the party leadership could not accept that Maassen accused the CDU of a “left-green” and “anti-German” course. “The ideas behind it have no place in Germany’s CDU,” emphasized the party leader at the time. The CDU is conservative. “But we’re not right-wing extremists.”
Maassen made the statements about the political course of the CDU in the Swiss newspaper “Weltwoche” by right-wing populist Roger Köppel. Maassen has now received a reprimand from the district party court for this.
Utterances from the right margin
The former president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has already attracted attention several times with statements from the right-wing fringe. The CDU leadership accused him of using “language from the milieu of anti-Semites and conspiracy ideologues to ethnic expressions”. Maassen had “clearly” distanced himself from the basic positions of his party, he no longer had any business in the party, said the CDU General Secretary at the time, Mario Czaja, in February.
Maassen is a member of the Thuringian state association, which is why the local party court was also responsible. In the 2021 federal election campaign, he ran unsuccessfully as a direct candidate. He has no office or function in the party – the conservative value union, which he chairs, is not an official party organization of the CDU. The party leadership had expressed its disapproval of the group and stated that anyone who is a member of the CDU cannot also be a member of the Union of Values.
Maassen: “Slap” for Merz
Maassen described the decision as a “resounding slap in the face” for Merz. “I hope that Mr. Merz is now better advised and will not get the next rebuff in the next instance,” he said “Bild”. He assumes “that with this verdict the so-called firewall against our value union has been torn down”.
According to the federal CDU, an appeal can be lodged against the decision. The district party court was the first instance – in the event of a complaint, the state party court in Thuringia would initially be responsible. Should an appeal also be lodged against its decision, the Federal Party Court would have to decide.