Hans-Georg Maassen is to leave the CDU. But apparently he doesn’t do it voluntarily. The ultimatum set by the CDU leadership has expired.
The controversial former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen (CDU), has let the ultimatum set by the CDU leadership to voluntarily leave the party expire, according to the CDU. “The federal office of the CDU in Germany has not received a resignation from Dr. Maassen,” said a CDU spokesman for the German Press Agency in Berlin on Sunday. Thuringia’s CDU General Secretary Christian Herrgott also said on Sunday: “We have had no reaction from Mr. Maassen.”
The spokesman for the federal party also announced that “in the event that has now apparently occurred that Dr. Maassen does not leave the party voluntarily by 5 February at 12 noon”, the Presidium has applied to the federal executive board of the CDU to initiate party exclusion proceedings against Maassen and to withdraw his membership rights with immediate effect.
Maassen can comment in writing
In the run-up to the corresponding meeting of the CDU federal executive board planned for February 13, Maassen will have the opportunity to comment in writing, the party spokesman said. Maassen was informed by email and letter last Wednesday that he had the opportunity to get involved in writing until next Thursday.
The CDU presidium issued an ultimatum to Maaßen by 12 noon on Sunday to leave the party. In the past few weeks, he had again come under massive criticism for statements.
In a tweet, he 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”.
More than 70 elimination procedures
The so-called arbitral tribunals of the respective parties are responsible for party exclusion proceedings. On the basis of the party law, its members decide, for example, whether the politicians concerned have behaved in a way that is harmful to the party and whether their membership can therefore be revoked.
Since 1945 there have been more than 70 expulsion procedures in the major parties. Some procedures were successful, many others were rejected – and in some cases the initially excluded politicians came back after a short time to re-enter.
These politicians had to leave their party
Among those affected were ordinary members, but also party leaders and federal ministers. The reasons for their expulsion from the party range from intolerable views, racist and conspiracy theory statements to corruption scandals. t-online provides an overview of the most well-known procedures in the recent past:
These cases alone show that expelling a party is not that easy. This is due, among other things, to the special position and role of the parties enshrined in the Basic Law.
In paragraph 10, paragraph 4, it says there literally: “A member can only be expelled from the party if it intentionally violates the statutes or significantly violates the principles or rules of the party and thus causes serious damage to it.”
