The Secretary General of the CDU, Paul Ziemiak, appeals to the wings of his party to withhold mutual attacks.
"I tell everyone, and especially those who express themselves in the social networks: The political competitor is outside the CDU and not within its own ranks," he told SPIEGEL with regard to the ultra-conservative values of Union and the Liberal Union of the Middle.
- Read the full interview with Paul Ziemiak here.
"We argue about positions, and that must be," said the CDU Secretary General. "But to win back voters, we should not concern ourselves with ourselves, but explain what we actually intend to do with the country." He demanded: "It is important that we treat each other with respect." This makes the CDU as a bourgeois party.
The valuesUnion with its most prominent member Hans-Georg Maaßen, ex-president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, also repeatedly criticizes the party leadership for the chairman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and especially the Chancellor and ex-chairman Angela Merkel.
Linnemann: "CDU must be able to withstand Maaßen"
However, the chairman of the CDU / CSU SME Association, Carsten Linnemann, deplores the narrowing of the opinion climate in his own party. "People have the feeling that the boundaries of the word can always be tightened," said Linnemann the SPIEGEL and warned: "That drives them to AfD."
A people's party like the CDU would have to endure criticism of refugee policy, according to Linnemann, who is also a Union faction vice. "She must be able to withstand a person like Hans-Georg Maassen."
Christian Charisius / DPA
Carsten Linnemann
Thus, Linnemann also criticizes Party leader Kramp-Karrenbauer, who had publicly distanced himself from the former constitutional protection president.
"I do not see any attitude in Mr Maassen that really connects him with the CDU," Kramp-Karrenbauer said in an interview with the Funke media group. Maaßen had campaigned for some CDU candidates in Saxony.
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