CDU issues ultimatum: Maassen calls threat of party expulsion "imprudent"

Statements such as “red-green racial theory” or “racism against whites” are part of his repertoire, but former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Maaßen claims that these gaffes are “not racist”. There are no reasons for an expulsion procedure that the Union is threatening him with, he says.

The controversial former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, does not see any chance of success in a possible party expulsion procedure against him. The announcement by the CDU presidium that he should leave the party or otherwise have to face a party expulsion process surprised him, Maassen told the “Welt”.

“That is unwise from the party leadership, because the requirements for an exclusion procedure are not met.” The CDU Presidium had previously asked Maassen to leave the party by February 5th. The 60-year-old defended his statements, for which he has been heavily criticized for days. “What I said is not racist, it’s what many people in the country think,” Maassen told the newspaper.

The former constitutional protection officer claimed in a tweet that the thrust of the “driving forces in the political and media space” was “eliminatory racism against whites”. In an interview, Maassen also spoke of a “red-green racial theory”. The statements caused outrage and some were classified as anti-Semitic.

He now said to the “Welt”: “Among other things, I have advocated controlling and limiting migration and reject ideological positions that, by analogy, demand the extinction of the ‘white bread’, i.e. people with white skin, through mass migration.” If the CDU does not support his criticism, then it is a left-wing party.

After the verbal gaffes, the CDU presidium Maassen unanimously issued an ultimatum to leave the party. If he does not leave the CDU by 12 noon on Sunday, February 5th, the party’s federal executive committee should initiate an exclusion procedure “and withdraw his membership rights with immediate effect,” the CDU said after deliberations in the party’s presidium.

Exclusion procedures are difficult – in the case of the SPD, for example, several attempts were necessary to throw Thilo Sarrazin out of the party. And until it succeeded, it still gave the Social Democrats a number of headlines and controversies.