Hans-Georg Maassen is the chairman of the WerteUnion (Values Union), an association in Germany that considers itself to be the conservative wing of the centre-right opposition alliance, CDU/CSU. WerteUnion has 4,000 members, 85% of whom are members of CDU/CSU. Maassen served as the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic security agency from 2012 to 2018. He was forced out of this role after disagreeing with then-Chancellor and CDU leader Angela Merkel: she believed news reports about the 2018 Chemnitz protests, which claimed that German protesters were “hunting down” migrants, Maassen doubted their veracity. In the past five years, Maassen has been an outspoken critic of mass migration into Germany, the government’s woke agenda, and climate policies. He also disapproves of his country sending weapons to Ukraine in the war against Russia and believes CDU has veered sharply to the left. Party leadership wanted to expel him from the CDU after he stated in January that “eliminatory racism against whites” was one of “the driving forces in the political media sphere” in Germany. In July, an arbitration panel rejected his expulsion, but further efforts could be made to oust him. Hans-Georg Maassen agreed to talk to us about his ordeal and the future of his party.
Following the arbitration panel’s decision not to expel you, what happens next? What do you think the leadership will do?
The leadership of the CDU is dominated by left-wingers, you can call them Merkelists, they are the ones who want to expel me. It is not only about me, but also about the WerteUnion, of which I am the chairman. It is a more conservative wing of the CDU. So the question is whether the CDU will have a more conservative wing or not in the future. The left-wingers are very strong and they want to get rid of me and the WerteUnion. Time will tell whether they will take the next step, which is to appeal the court’s decision to the higher-level court. This next step will also reveal how strong the left-wingers really are within the party.
Friedrich Merz was elected as the leader of the CDU in 2021, and many in the party hoped he would be a conservative alternative to Angela Merkel. Do you think he is not conservative enough, or does he not have enough power to push through his ideas?
Unfortunately, I don’t think he has enough power because he is all alone, he has no supporters in the party’s executive committee apart from Carsten Lindemann, the General Secretary. The others are more or less left-wingers. He is in a very difficult position. He said in an interview that the CDU is open to cooperating with the AfD [right-wing opposition party] on a local level. A day later the CDU’s left-wingers strongly criticised him, which resulted in Friedrich Merz correcting his own words. This means that he is really weak, weaker than before. He doesn’t even have the authority to voice his own opinion.
Why has CDU abandoned its conservative roots?
I think Angela Merkel wanted to change the CDU, which was a more conservative party or at least a conservative party with a social wing. She wanted to change it into a socialist party. In my opinion, she was a total left-winger. She came from the communist side of East Germany, she had no relationship with the conservative groups of the Western CDU. She successfully transformed the classic-conservative CDU of Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl into a socialist party, and turned the party establishment into a real left-wing establishment. Friedrich Merz and Carsten Linnemann are outsiders on the executive committee.
At the same time AfD is riding high in the polls, it is now the second most popular party in Germany with 23%. Do you think the reason for that is because conservative voters are left with no other alternative?
Yes, I believe so. The AfD has become a more radical party because a lot of moderate politicians left, for example, Jörg Meuthen, Konrad Adam, Frauke Petry—a lot of really brave and moderate politicians. However, people don’t vote for the AfD because it is a radical party but because they do not have an alternative. They want to have a conservative party, a party with more realistic policies, not an eco-woke ideology which is the main driving force of the left-wing parties. So there really is a need for a more conservative party in Germany, but there is simply no alternative. If you are strongly against wokeness, against the eco- and climate religion, all you can do is stay at home and not vote, or you can vote for the AfD.
Could a new political force fill in the gap between CDU and AfD in the near future?
Yes, I think so. There are a lot of initiatives for forming a new strong party. Even in the WerteUnion, there are a lot of board members who want to establish a new party. There are former politicians who would like to join a new party. There is also Bündnis Deutschland, a very small party that won almost 10% of the votes at the state elections in Bremen a few months ago. Sahra Wagenknecht could also establish a new party. She is a communist, but is against the mainstream on many issues. She is no longer a left-winger. She has conservative views on issues like migration, wokeness, and the Ukraine war. Her party could be appealing to right-wingers, in the same way as the AfD is appealing to former supporters of the social democrats in the Eastern states of Saxony or Thuringia.
If the CDU does decide to pursue your expulsion from the party, would you be interested in either establishing or taking part in a new conservative party?
Possibly, I don’t know.
Are you afraid of being expelled? Do you think there is a likelihood of that happening?
It is not a question of being afraid. It’s a win-win situation for me. I’m not a politician. I am only an ordinary member of the party, I have nothing to lose. If the party decides to kick me out, I will be free, and it will also mean that the members of the WerteUnion and a lot of conservative members of the CDU will see that the CDU is really a left-wing party, a party that is not willing to accept members who are conservative. This could be the start of a new initiative.
Regarding Friedrich Merz’s statement about leaving the door open for cooperation with the AfD on a local level—do you agree with him?
I think it is normal to cooperate on a local level. According to some news articles, even the Greens cooperate on the local level with the AfD. If you sincerely believe in being a democrat, then in a democratic society it is necessary to speak with all people, with right-wingers and left-wingers, even to radicals and extremists.
In an interview you gave to Deutschlandfunk in January, you said that Germany has shifted to the left, and now Green and woke ideologies dominate the public discourse, the language, the media, and culture. Why has this happened?
I think the ordinary middle class (in German we say bürgerliche Gesellschaft) in Germany, the classic CDU voters are absolutely tolerant, and by tolerant I mean that they accepted the left-wingers and the woke-ists. However, in my opinion they are extremists, just like the climate extremists, and they have very important roles in our society, key roles in politics, in our judicial system, our universities, and in the media. We were so weak and naive that we didn’t realise how they abused their roles, and used them for agitation, propaganda, and to fight against the middle class.
One could say that mass migration into Europe is one of the signs of weakness, and Angela Merkel played a big part in opening the borders. Can migration, especially illegal migration, be stopped?
I think it is, and can be done easily. During my career, for many years I was responsible for dealing with German immigration law and border controls. It is easy to stop migration. You just have to do it. We have a very good, well-trained border police, and so do all European countries. We could stop migration immediately if we wanted to, stop ships on the Mediterranean Sea, stop migration from Turkey, but there is no political will to do so.
Why not?
The left wing has a very aggressive ideology, which is targeted towards people with white skin. In other words, they are racists. They want to have millions of foreigners from Africa and the Middle East. If you read statements from the Greens and so-called refugee helpers, it is clear that their ideology is racist. They want society to change, to become totally different because of Germany’s past, and because of European colonialism.
You have also criticised the German government’s stance on the war in Ukraine. At the start of the war, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was hesitant to send weapons to Ukraine, but today Germany has one of the most hawkish governments in Europe. Is Germany under the influence of the Biden Administration?
I would have to speculate but I don’t want to. I think Olaf Scholz is quite weak as German Chancellor, and it is not in the German interest to be part of this war. In my opinion, it is necessary to do everything possible for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
