Against the will of the state party, the southern Thuringian CDU district association Hildburghausen-Henneberger Land has demanded that the CDU federal vice president Karin Prien be expelled from the party. “I am already aware that the initiative may not meet with much approval,” said the chairman of the CDU district association Hildburghausen-Henneberger Land, Christopher Other, on Friday of the dpa news agency. But if, in the case of the former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, there is a discussion about which values are decisive in order to remain in the CDU, one must also talk about statements by Prien in the 2021 federal election campaign. The Thuringian CDU distanced itself from the initiative.
In 2021, Maaßen was a candidate for the Bundestag for constituency 196 in southern Thuringia (Suhl – Schmalkalden-Meiningen – Hildburghausen – Sonneberg) and repeatedly caused outrage with controversial statements. The CDU federal executive decided on Monday to initiate party exclusion proceedings against him.
In 2021, a few weeks before the federal elections, Prien said on the ZDF program “Markus Lanz” about Maaßen’s nomination as a CDU Bundestag candidate in southern Thuringia: “I have to accept that, even if I’m not at all enthusiastic about it and I’m wondering what Mr Maaßen is actually looking for in the CDU.”
When asked if she would choose Maaßen, Prien said: “Let me put it this way, I’m always fascinated by competitive athletes.” Maaßen also competed against the former national biathlon coach Frank Ullrich (SPD), who ultimately made the choice in the Region won and now sits in the Bundestag.
The CDU district association Hildburghausen-Henneberger Land called on the CDU federal executive board on Thursday to submit an application for a party exclusion procedure against Prien. The signatories cited party-damaging behavior as the reason, referring to statements by Prien in the Lanz broadcast. Prien is also Minister of Education in Schleswig-Holstein. When asked by the dpa, she did not want to comment on the actions of the district association in Thuringia.
In recent years, Maassen has repeatedly attracted attention with statements from the far right and the spread of conspiracy theories. It was mainly because of this that he came under massive criticism. At the end of January, Maassen was elected the new chairman of the arch-conservative union of values within the CDU. He is a member of the Thuringian CDU state association.
District leader Other criticized the fact that the federal board had not personally spoken to Maassen. At the same time, he admitted that Maassen’s vocabulary “is definitely not the right one”. You can always address problems, but you have to be careful what “collateral damage” this can cause. “It’s clear that it didn’t necessarily help us on the spot, as he said, and we told him that,” said Other.
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