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Former Berlin Finance Senator Kurth: Once a liberal hope for the CDU

Photo: BRIGANI-ART / Heinrich / IMAGO

There is still confusion in the CDU about the membership of the southpaw Peter Kurth.

The former Berlin Finance Senator declared his resignation at the end of September in a letter to the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus in Berlin, whereupon CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann had a conversation with him.

His resignation is considered null and void; Kurth will instead be transferred to the CDU district association Märkisch Oderland in Brandenburg as requested.

Kurth owns a house there.

The responsible CDU district manager Horst Fittler then sent him a letter on January 3, 2024, informing him that the membership fees would soon be debited from his account.

In the letter, which SPIEGEL has received, this Kurth sends "my best wishes for the New Year, especially health, happiness and always a cheerful smile on his lips."

He hopes “that we can get to know each other in person at one of the next events.”

Enclosed, the letter continues, “you will receive the pre-notification regarding future debits.”

When Kurth's intensive contacts with right-wing extremists became known shortly afterwards through SPIEGEL's reporting, he became persona non grata.

The CDU announced that Kurth was effectively no longer a member of the party because he had failed to submit a new application for membership in the Märkisch Oderland district association - a contradiction to Linnemann's previous exchange with Kurth.

The CDU general secretary is now defending himself.

"I didn't know at the time that a new entry was necessary," Linnemann explained to SPIEGEL.

And he emphasized: "If Kurth had still been a CDU member after the allegations became known, we would have immediately initiated an exclusion process."

Once a liberal hopeful

The 63-year-old Kurth, who was once considered one of the hopes of a liberal metropolitan CDU in Berlin, invited people to a meeting on his roof terrace in Berlin last July, which included, among others, the AfD politician Maximilian Krah, now the party's top candidate for the European elections, the publisher Götz Kubitschek and the right-wing extremist activist Martin Sellner from Austria appeared.

Kurth confirmed that Krah had presented his new book in his apartment – ​​“Politics from the Right”.

Research by SPIEGEL and MDR recently revealed that Kurth is said to have supported the “Identitarian Movement” (IB) with 240,000 euros.

Between 2019 and 2022, Kurth put the money into a corporate network of the movement, which is classified by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as “certainly extremist”.

flo/sev