The CDU wants to start a party exclusion procedure against the former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, should he not leave the party voluntarily.

According to a text decided on Monday by the CDU presidium in Berlin and then published in part, Maassen is constantly violating the principles and order of the party.

Again and again he uses "the language from the milieu of anti-Semites and conspiracy ideologues up to ethnic expressions," it continues.

According to the information, the Presidium unanimously decided to ask Maassen again to leave the party and to set a deadline for next Sunday noon.

At the same time, according to party information, an application was made to the federal executive committee to initiate party exclusion proceedings against Maassen and to withdraw his membership rights with immediate effect if he did not resign himself.

Maassen was elected chairman of the "Values ​​Union" at the weekend, an association of right-wing conservative-oriented Union supporters that is not recognized as an official party structure.

Criticism of the “Union of Values”

The CDU Presidium also confirmed the rejection of the association on Monday.

Anyone who is a member of the CDU cannot at the same time be a member of the so-called “Union of Values”, is quoted from the decision.

At the latest since the election of Maaßen, "each of their members has to ask themselves where their political home is," it continues.

With the election of Maaßen as chairman, the merger must also be attributed to his “past and current intolerable statements”, explained the CDU presidium.

After a career in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Hans-Georg Maassen was President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution from 2012 to 2018.

As head of the domestic secret service, he had caused outrage when he spoke of "targeted false information" in connection with demonstrations by right-wing groups in Chemnitz, which caused a nationwide sensation, and expressed doubts about reports of hunts on foreigners that could be seen on videos.

After the accusation of spreading right-wing conspiracy ideologies and a crisis in the grand coalition that he had triggered, he was retired by Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) after a long struggle.

Maaßen, who ran for a direct mandate in Thuringia in the last federal election, has repeatedly caused outrage on the Twitter network, most recently with statements about alleged “anti-German and anti-white racism”.