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Erfurt (AP) - The former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, wants to move into the Bundestag for the CDU in September.
He wanted to run for constituency 196 in southern Thuringia, Maaßen confirmed on Thursday at a dpa request.
In this constituency, Mark Hauptmann, who has since left the party, was elected in the 2017 federal election.
The Thuringian CDU initially gave no statement.
The «Bild» newspaper had previously reported that the CDU district association Schmalkalden-Meiningen wanted to nominate Maassen as a candidate for the Bundestag and decided to do so on Wednesday evening.
As the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at the time, Maassen came under massive criticism because he had doubted that foreigners would be “hunted down” after the killing of a German in Chemnitz.
In November 2018, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) put him into temporary retirement.
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