and the former leader of the german interior intelligence the “constitution protection” is spurting antisemitic dogwhistles over twitter and running as a candidate for Germanys conservative party. When he was accused of antisemitism for talking about “globalists” and other antisemitic conspiracies, the federal commissioner to fight antisemitism defended him, saying that this serious accusation should not be used lighthearted.
Nice spin!
Following the antisemitic tweets of Maaßen in January 2023, the national board of the conservative party decided unanimously to initiate proceedings to have him expelled from the party. Due to historical reasons, removing someone from a party against their will is notoriously hard in Germany. And so, in June 2023, a district party court rejected these expulsion proceedings and reinstated his member rights, but there also have been numerous calls by party colleagues for him to leave the party.
Concerning the Anti-Semitism Commissioner of the Federal Government, Klein has been relatively clear with his condemnation of Maaßen’s January tweets. He accused him of relativising the Holocaust by “adopting vocabulary that was coined to describe National Socialist crimes”. The distortion of the roles of perpetrator and victim was “typical of anti-Semitic incitement” and the strategy of the New Right to turn itself into a victim.