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Hans-Georg Maaßen
Photo:
Jens Schlueter / AFP
Surprising end to a secret operation: On Thursday, Hans-Georg Maaßen announced the dissolution of his just-founded ValuesUnion party.
"It's over," Maaßen said at a press conference in Chemnitz.
This was preceded by the departures of prominent values union members with connections to the “Reichsbürger” milieu.
This means that his actual goal can no longer be achieved, said Maaßen: "I only pushed forward with the founding of the party in order to permanently bind right-wing extremist threats and to let their energy waste away pointlessly." In fact, the former President for the Protection of the Constitution revealed, his commitment to the Values Union was was an undercover operation in which only he, former Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and former Chancellor Angela Merkel were privy to.
The Chancellor had "sent her best man into a politically explosive and personally very challenging assignment."
The top official and the two politicians staged a public rift that would ultimately result in Maaßen apparently drifting to the right-wing fringe and making him a credible figurehead of the extreme right.
For years he had to pretend and use “absurd statements” to gain the trust of the extremes.
As a private citizen, he was "rather liberal in his attitude"; it "torn him up inside."
That's why he couldn't continue to present himself as "completely crazy" and finally decided to end "Operation Stauffenberg."
Together with Merkel, Maaßen now wants to write a book about “this crazy time,” and a podcast is also planned.
But first he just wants one thing: “To finally talk to normal people again.”