Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), is investigating its former boss, Hans-Georg Maassen, over alleged links to the far-right movement Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich). Maassen, a vocal critic of mass migration and green climate policies, calls the move politically motivated.
The Reichsbürger is a group of some 21,000 individuals who regard Germany’s modern liberal democracy as illegitimate and refuse to recognise it. In police raids across eleven federal states last year, 25 members of the movement were arrested, believed to have been plotting the armed overthrow of the German government and the democratic constitution. It was the investigation by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) into the activities of Reichsbürger that apparently led to Maassen, according to the German publication Bild, which broke the story. A witness in the investigation phoned Maassen after police searched his home, and the call was tapped by detectives.
Maassen, who is a lawyer, said that the witness was his client and that “the interception of a telephone conversation between a witness in a criminal case and his lawyer is unlawful.” The BfV has asked BKA to hand over any information it has on Maassen, reports The Telegraph. “If this is true, then it is obvious that the BfV is no longer being used to protect the constitution, but is being misused to protect the government and to fight and persecute government critics,” he tweeted.
Hans-Georg Maassen served as the president of BfV from 2012 to 2018. He was forced out of this role after disagreeing with then-Chancellor and CDU party leader Angela Merkel: she believed news reports about the 2018 Chemnitz protests, which claimed that German protesters were “hunting down” migrants, but Maassen doubted their veracity. In the past five years, Maassen has been an outspoken critic of mass migration into Germany, the left-wing government’s woke agenda, and climate policies. He also disapproves of his country sending weapons to Ukraine in the war against Russia and believes the centre-right CDU—of which he is a member and which is now in opposition—has veered sharply to the left.
In an interview with The European Conservative, he said that Angela Merkel had “transformed the classic-conservative CDU of Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl into a socialist party.” The party’s leadership wanted to expel Maassen 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.
Before the recent developments came to light, he said in an interview with the Swiss publication Die Weltwoche that the BfV’s duty is to protect the constitution; it shouldn’t serve the interests of the government, and it definitely shouldn’t protect the government from the opposition. Regarding the current situation, he said that any investigation into him by the BfV would be political persecution.
Although the Interior Ministry, which oversees the BfV, declined to comment on the matter, a leading member of the Greens—one of the parties in government—made his position quite clear. Konstantin von Notz, the chairman of the intelligence services oversight committee in the Bundestag, called for the surveillance of Hans-Georg Maassen. “It seems logical to me that people and structures that oppose the constitutional order should be observed by the constitutional protection authorities,” he said, but did not elaborate on why Maassen would have to be surveilled.
Maassen reacted on social media platform X by saying:
Mr. von Notz accuses me of anti-constitutional activities without any factual evidence. He spreads hatred and agitates against anyone who disagrees with him politically. The fact that he is now advocating my surveillance by the domestic intelligence agency shows how his party interprets the rule of law and democracy.
As The European Conservative reported, the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) in the region of Brandenburg classified the youth wing of the right-wing opposition party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), as a right-wing extremist group. Earlier this year, the BfV attempted to declare the Junge Alternative (JA) a right-wing extremist group on a national scale but withdrew the change in classification after the AfD announced it would be challenging the agency in court.
By upgrading the JA to a right-wing extremist group, the BfV is able to use various intelligence tools against members of the group, including electronic wiretapping, covert observations, and the use of confidential undercover informants. The head of the BfV, Thomas Haldenwang, has even personally come out against the AfD, warning German voters not to vote for the party, which is currently the second strongest party according to opinion polls.
