Hans-Georg Maassen has terminated his contract as co-author of the commentary on the Basic Law published by Christian Hillgruber and Volker Epping at Verlag CH Beck.
The former president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution forestalled the termination of the contract by the publisher.
Patrick Bahners
Feuilleton correspondent in Cologne and responsible for "Humanities".
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Maassen, who received his doctorate at the University of Cologne with a thesis on the legal status of asylum seekers in international law and was responsible for foreigners law as a consultant in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, edited Articles 16 (extradition) and 16a (right of asylum) in the one-volume commentary.
People "who stand on the ground of our free democratic basic order"
The publishing house CH Beck informed the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on request: "The law, taxes and economics department of the publishing house CH Beck serves the law and the scientific interpretation of our laws and legal sources.
Jurisprudence thrives on the discourse of the various actors with the most diverse opinions.
The publisher offers a forum for this and feels obliged to be neutral.
An important criterion is whether these opinions and the people who represent them stand on the ground of our free democratic basic order.
This neutrality also requires that the publisher does not get caught up in the disputes of daily politics.
Although the commentary by Dr.
Hans-Georg Maassen's commentary on the Basic Law is not technically objectionable.
Regarding the person and public statements of Dr.
Maaßen, however, resulted in a heated discussion with increasing polarization, in which the irreconcilable positions took on a life of their own.
This harms the commentary on the Basic Law on which Dr.
Maassen contributed, its editors and the publishing house.
We distance ourselves from all extreme political statements by authors who test the limits of what is constitutionally acceptable.
Since we, as a publisher, regard these limits as inviolable, we reject such statements.
The reputation of our company and its success are based on the broad consensus of a majority in our society, which, like us, stands firmly on the ground of our constitution.
We have therefore decided to take advantage of our opportunities to sign the publishing contract with Dr.
to end Maassen.
Thereupon Dr.
Maassen himself terminated it on January 17, 2023.”
The reputation of our company and its success are based on the broad consensus of a majority in our society, which, like us, stands firmly on the ground of our constitution.
We have therefore decided to take advantage of our opportunities to sign the publishing contract with Dr.
to end Maassen.
Thereupon Dr.
Maassen himself terminated it on January 17, 2023.”
The reputation of our company and its success are based on the broad consensus of a majority in our society, which, like us, stands firmly on the ground of our constitution.
We have therefore decided to take advantage of our opportunities to sign the publishing contract with Dr.
to end Maassen.
Thereupon Dr.
Maassen himself terminated it on January 17, 2023.”
After the Bochum constitutional lawyer Stefan Huster left the circle of Hillgruber/Epping authors in protest at the turn of the year, recent public statements by Maassen fueled the debate about his suitability as a constitutional commentator.
Most recently, Jens-Christian Wagner, head of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, in a guest commentary in the "Jüdische Allgemeine" newspaper, called on the CDU to exclude Maaßen because he was viewed on Twitter as the "direction" of the "driving forces in the political and media space ' identified an 'eliminatory racism against whites'.