Hans-Georg Maassen has recently come under massive criticism for his statements. The CDU presidium is now giving him an ultimatum: the former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution should leave the party by Sunday. But so far he only claims to have heard about it from the media.
According to his own statements, the controversial former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, has so far only heard from the media about the party leadership's request to leave the party. "I haven't received anything from the CDU so far," said Maassen on Deutschlandfunk. "I checked my inbox and mailbox yesterday, including my email inboxes. I didn't get anything."
Maassen did not want to commit himself to how he would deal with the request that he should leave the CDU. First of all, he expects the CDU to present evidence that he then wants to examine legally. He continued: "First of all, I want to see the CDU's briefs, I'll check them with my lawyers, and then we'll see." He also rejects accusations from the party that he is using racist language. "I emphatically reject that. These are pure allegations, that is defamatory."
The CDU presidium decided on Monday to give Maassen a deadline for leaving until February 5 at 12 noon. If Maassen has not left the CDU by then, the presidency will apply to the federal executive committee to initiate a party exclusion procedure and the immediate withdrawal of membership rights.
"There is no place in our party for his statements and the ideas expressed with them," the decision said. Again and again the former president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution uses "the language from the milieu of anti-Semites and conspiracy ideologues up to ethnic expressions". Maassen violates "constantly against the principles and order of the party".
In a tweet, Maassen recently claimed that the thrust of the “driving forces in the political and media space” was “eliminatory racism against whites”. The historian and head of the Buchenwald Memorial, Jens-Christian Wagner, then accused him of "classic extreme right-wing reversal of guilt" and trivializing the Holocaust. In an interview, Maassen also spoke of a "red-green racial theory".
CDU leader Friedrich Merz told ntv.de: "Doctor Maassen is obviously not interested in the well-being of the CDU. On the contrary, he constantly violates the principles and order of the party." The CDU presidium was faced with the consideration of "whether we want to continue to be provoked by Mr. Maaßen or whether we are going to make a cut now. This point was reached with the statements made last week."
Despite criticism of Maassen, Merz had hesitated for a long time to take the step to a party exclusion procedure. Because in all parties the hurdle for a successful exclusion is very high. In the SPD there is an exclusion procedure against ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The Greens had years of conflict with the mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer.
Maassen was President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution from 2012 to 2018. He had to vacate the post after questioning right-wing extremist riots in Chemnitz. In 2021 he failed in the federal elections as a direct candidate for the CDU in Thuringia.
