Hans-Georg Maassen left the CDU

Phg. Hans-Georg Massen, former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is leaving the CDU. Massen has confirmed to NZZ that he is leaving the CDU. He will inform his district association of his resignation on Friday. He says: “When a horse dies, you have to unsaddle it – and the CDU is not only heart dead, but now brain dead.”

Expulsion from the party has been going on for about six months. In November 2023, the CDU District Party Court in Thuringia rejected this exemption. As party leader Friedrich Merz declared, any appeal against the next higher authority would be unnecessary once Massen left.

Values ​​were concluded “on the basis” of the Laws of the Union Party

Massen sees his political home entirely in the Union of Values, of which he is president. The registered association was founded seven years ago because some representatives felt the union had moved to the left under its then-president Angela Merkel. Last weekend, members of the Union of Values ​​decided at a meeting in Erfurt that the union should found a new party with the same name. The goal is to break the five percent barrier in three East German state elections in the fall.

Massen has now told NZZ that the Constituent Party Conference will be held in mid-February and that the laws are basically ready. CDU leader Merz had already made it clear that simultaneous membership of the CDU and the Union of Values ​​was no longer possible under his party's rules.

Merkel has “led us one step towards the abyss, and now we are one step ahead,” Maasen charges. It was Merkel, in her role as chancellor, who fired Masson as head of domestic intelligence in 2018.

Massen disagrees with the firewall theory

Even under Friedrich Merz, Massen sees no progress in the CDU, as he puts it. At the start of his tenure, Merz was considered a favorite of Massen and the Union of Values. “Mers doesn't deliver,” says Massen. He has done very little against the federal government's “environmental socialism.” Massen wrote on the text messaging service

Massen also opposes Merz's firewall theory against the AfD. Because there is no place for firewalls in a free society, the Union of Values ​​wants to speak to all political forces in the future, Maassen explains.

Many in the CDU must have breathed a sigh of relief over the decision. Masson's comments were repeatedly said to be a disgrace to the party. Due to this, the process of eliminating the party has started. Massen wants to create an “extremely radical” alternative for middle-class voters with the new party, which pollsters believe has a potential of up to 15 percent.