Former German security chief reveals investigation into his own right-wing actvities
Hans-Georg Maaßen publishes BfV freedom of information response
Hans-Georg Maaßen in May 2023 (Elekes Andor CC.4.0).
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Back in August, it was reported that Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the BfV, was investigating one of its own former chiefs, Hans-Georg Maaßen.
Now Maaßen himself has confirmed the claim, releasing the BfV’s response to a freedom of information request from his lawyer.1 The letter is in German, but from what I can make out, Maaßen asked about material linking him to the Reichsbürger movement, which was implicated in a coup plot in 2022.2
The BfV response consists of open source material returned by a search within those parameters, including statements by Maaßen himself and various right-wing figures. Reuters gives the following translation of one such snippet:
The right-wing extremist Bernhard Schraub, in a letter to Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, described your client as an 'upstanding republican'," the BfV's first example reads. Only unclassified material features in freedom of information releases.3
It’s not clear to me that this is a particularly favourable reference. Although a German far-right party has used the ‘republican’ label, Prince Reuss, the alleged leader of the Reichsbürger movement, is reputed to be a staunch monarchist.
The investigation that emerges from the BfV letter does not, on the face of it, amount to much more than the monitoring of a right-wing scene within which Maaßen’s name has turned up. yet there may be more to the story. The Telegraph reported last year that an individual linked to the 2022 plot, said by Maaßen to be a legal client, was intercepted telephoning the former BfV chief after a police search of their home.4 Any such intercept would likely not be released in response to an FOI request.
The episode underlines the tensions that exist in Germany, as elsewhere, as the constitutional order grapples with the growth of the radical right.
In 2012, the BfV President Heinz Fromm resigned amid controversy over the handling of agents within the National Socialist Underground.5 Maaßen was appointed as his successor, only to be removed in 2018 after he downplayed right-wing extremism during anti-immigrant protests in Chemnitz.6
He then moved into political activism as a member of the conservative CDU, forming a group, WerteUnion, that operates in the space where CDU hardliners overlap with the radical right AFD.7 The latter party is expected to do well in elections this year, even though it is itself under surveillance on suspicion of being anti-constitutional.8
Sam Jones, Former German spy chief investigated for rightwing extremism, Financial Times, 31 January 2024.
Bescheid_BfV_v_16012024.pdf, hgmaassen.com, accessed 1 February 2024.
Thomas Escritt, Germany's former top neo-Nazi hunter now being monitored as extremist, Reuters, 31 January 2024.
Jörg Luyken, Germany's MI5 investigates its former boss for hard-Right links, The Telegraph, 16 August 2023.
Errors in Neo-Nazi Investigation: German Spy Chief Quits over Botched Terror Probe, SpiegelOnline, 2 July 2012.
Thomas Escritt, Jump or be pushed: German conservatives turn on ex-Nazi hunter over race comments, Reuters, 30 January 2023.
Germany: Right-wing group to form a new conservative party, Deutsche Welle, 20 January 2024.
Andreas Rinke and Sarah Marsh, Ban the AfD or fight it? Germany grapples over how to counter the far-right, Reuters, 31 January 2024.