"Vaccination ban"?

Maaßen provokes CDU exclusion debate - "Can no longer tolerate that"

Created: 01/04/2022, 08:45 AM

From: Florian Naumann

Hans-Georg Maaßen (CDU) at an event.

© Martin Schutt / dpa-Zentralbild / dpa / archive image

New year, old problems: The CDU is again debating about excluding Hans-Georg Maaßen from the party.

He had previously shared an appeal for a "vaccination ban" online.

Kiel / Berlin - The CDU could deal with explosive personnel in 2022: Karin Prien, member of the CDU federal executive board and candidate for a party vice position, expelled the long-controversial ex-constitution protection chief Hans- Georg Maassen from the party called for.

Maassen back in focus: CDU board member Prien wants to be excluded from the party

“Ça suffit”, in German “that's enough”, she wrote on Twitter - along with the hashtags “# Maaßen” and “#Parteiausschlussjetzt”.

When asked by a commentator, Prien confirmed that she would “demand” the exclusion.

The history of internal party disputes is long;

Prien and Maassen had already clashed.

The impetus was now a post by the former CDU direct candidate on the “Gettr” platform, a social media channel popular with US conservatives, but also conspiracy theorists.

There, on New Year's Eve, Maaßen had shared a post from the Corona measures critic Sucharit Bhakdi via an account verified by the portal, in which he called for a "vaccination ban".

Maaßen wrote of a "moving appeal".

"If a former top official and constitutional protection officer spreads such conspiracy-theoretical nonsense and refers to the anti-Semite Bhakdi, then we as the CDU can no longer tolerate it," Prien told the

.

Schleswig-Holstein's General Public Prosecutor's Office started investigations into allegations of incitement to hatred against Bhakdi in November.

The reason for this was statements by Bhakdi in an interview, which were also distributed on Twitter.

In it, he accused Israel of coercion to vaccinate, and he said that the current situation in the country was worse than in Germany at the time of National Socialism.

Corona “vaccination ban”?

Maassen outraged CDU people - first approval for exclusion demand

On Monday (January 3rd) there were already the first supporters of an exclusion, if not from the first row of party celebrities. “In its renewal, the CDU not only has to make it clear what it wants, but also what it no longer wants. #Maassen's expulsion from the party is long overdue, ”wrote the former General Secretary Ruprecht Polenz on Twitter. Maaßen was "not a conservative Christian Democrat, but a wandering conspiracy supporter," said the Saxon CDU press spokesman Paul Schäfer - apparently in his private role as a CDU member.

Maaßen, for his part, struck back against Prien.

"Ms. Prien should leave the CDU," he wrote on Twitter and Gettr.

"With its established left-wing stance and its tendency to fight internal party opponents and enemies, it no longer represents the values ​​of the CDU Adenauers and Kohls."

Hans-Georg Maaßen: Already in the summer Zoff with Prien - CDU debate about realignment could pick up speed

Prien had already expressed doubts about Maassen's CDU membership and his direct candidacy for the Bundestag in Thuringia during the election campaign. She was wondering "what Mr. Maaßen is actually looking for in the CDU", she said in the ZDF talk "Markus Lanz". Prien indirectly recommended the election of the ultimately successful SPD constituency candidate Frank Ulrich. Maaßen then called for the politician to be kicked out of the future team of Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet - who did not answer the call, but repeatedly expressed himself rather evasively on the Maaßen case.

The dispute could now coincide with a struggle over the course of the CDU after the election debacle in September - an ex-CSU minister had already forecast long-term debates.

The Christian Democrats will soon elect the rather conservative Friedrich Merz as party leader.

Before and after the member's decision on the chairmanship, he had already carefully realigned himself, among other things with the demand for a hard "firewall" in the direction of the AfD.

However, the CDU does not have exclusive disputes over party affiliations in the German party landscape.

The Greens are negotiating an exclusion for the Mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer.

For a long time, the SPD had wrestled about how to deal with the former Berlin Senator for Finance, Thilo Sarrazin.

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