New Maaßen Party
Union of Values: Two prominent members resign just three days after the party was founded
The board members of the “Values Union” party Alexander Mitsch (lr), Sylvia Kaufhold, Martin Lohmann, Hans-Georg Maaßen, Albert Weiler and Kay-Achim Schönbach
© Thomas Banneyer / DPA
On Saturday, the Union of Values celebrated the official founding of the party with its chairman Hans-Georg Maaßen. But just a few days later there was apparently a stir: two prominent members, Max Otte and Markus Krall, are said to have promptly resigned.
Just two days after the founding of the Union of values, there is chaos in the new party: Only on Saturday, several members of the former CDU-affiliated association around the ex-head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, met on a ship on the Rhine and the DPA confirmed that the party was founded.
But now it is evident how fragile the new construct is: Two prominent members, Max Otte and Markus Krall, announced on Tuesday evening that they had promptly resigned from the party. This was preceded by statements from party co-founder Alexander Mitsch, which revealed an internal dispute over the direction of the party. The question is: How right-wing should the union of values actually be?
Union of values: Markus Krall and Max Otte leave two days after being founded
Mitsch was happy about the founding on Saturday and declared full-heartedly: “After the FDP sold itself to the red-green coalition, the new union of values is now the only serious liberal party.” Mitsch was elected deputy chairman of the party at the event.
But the announcement was not well received by all party members. Some apparently understood it as a demarcation from the AfD – a step that Maaßen apparently deliberately did not take in the past few weeks.
Although Maaßen himself emphasized that we were ready to work with everyone “if they support our positions and values,” the CDU was the “premium partner.” He later qualified his statement and explained: “We work with all political parties, the crucial thing is that our political program can be implemented. Only very few parties come into question.”
Dispute over the direction of the party: How right-wing should the union of values become?
But the appeasement failed to resonate for some Union of Values members. Max Otte, former chairman of the Junge Union and one of the harshest critics of the CDU’s policies under Angela Merkel, explained on Tuesday evening on instead indicate significant political misjudgments and overestimation of one’s own abilities. As of today I am leaving the #Union of Values.”
Otte is considered close to the AfD, donated a total of around 30,000 euros to the party between 2020 and 2021 and ran for the party in the 2022 federal presidential election. This is also why the CDU excluded him.
The second well-known face to announce his withdrawal from the party is Markus Krall. The management consultant and “crash prophet” was unable to take part in the founding event due to illness. In January, when the Union of Values decided to found the party at a general meeting, Krall and Maaßen demonstrated unity. Krall is important for the Union of Values because he brings “many followers,” as Maaßen explained at the time. It later became known that Krall would not hold a board position in the Union of Values.
He also flirted with the AfD and tried to set up the union of values in such a way that it would be available as a coalition partner and thus as a majority procurer for the AfD in the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg next autumn.
The statements from Maaßen and Mitsch apparently came across to members like Krall and Otte as a firewall that was put up by the party executive, as Krall himself wrote in a statement on X on Wednesday morning.
With material from DPA