The centre-right Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria is threatening to expel Markus Hammer, a veteran party member and former local leader in Puchheim, for speaking at a demonstration against a children’s event featuring a drag queen. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) organized the protest, although Hammer stressed that he attended in a personal capacity and as a representative of other CSU members who also opposed the event.
The children’s event, held in February by drag queen “Vicky Voyage,” drew sharp criticism from conservatives, who saw it as an attempt to indoctrinate minors. Around 35 people protested outside the venue. Hammer was among the protesters and gave a speech, saying he did not support the strict separation—known as the “firewall”—between his party and the AfD, a stance that is increasingly debated among German conservatives.
Hammer, who has been a CSU member for 27 years, insists that his speech did not support the AfD in any way, but was instead a clear defense of values shared by many citizens: the protection of children from hypersexualization and the ideological use of diversity in schools.
However, the CSU leadership sees things differently. CSU district chairwoman Katrin Staffler expressed outrage over a party member’s mere presence at a protest organized by the AfD, calling his participation “inappropriate and out of place.” According to Staffler, any gesture suggesting closeness between the two parties “contradicts everything I stand for.”
The reaction has sparked controversy both inside and outside the party. For many conservative voters, Hammer’s participation was not an act of alliance with the AfD but a legitimate protest against an event that raises serious concerns about ideological neutrality in education. The fact that the CSU reacts so harshly to the former and indifferently to the latter is causing growing unease.
Hammer has stated that he does not intend to leave the party voluntarily and was only officially informed of the procedure a few days ago. However, the local leadership had been pushing for it since February.
This case once again raises a key question for Germany’s establishment parties: What is more imporant—the defense of values or fear of political contamination? And, even more uncomfortably, is a man being persecuted for defending children or for doing so in a context the party leadership disapproves of?
