Spy chief gets higher-paid post
Chancellor Angela Merkel averted the second crisis in her coalition in as many months after ousting the controversial head of Germany’s domestic spy agency – by giving him a higher-paid job.
Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), had been criticised after he wrongly challenged Merkel’s claim that migrants were chased through the streets of the town of Chemnitz during rioting last month.
Social Democrats in her coalition had demanded his removal and threatened to quit the government if he stayed, while Horst Seehofer, the hardline interior minister, insisted that he had full confidence in the spy chief.
Merkel broke the impasse yesterday, agreeing a fudge that critics said exposed her weakness for the second time since July, when she narrowly avoided a government collapse in a bitter dispute with Seehofer over migration. ‘‘Herr Maassen will become state secretary in the Federal Interior Ministry,’’ the government said. ‘‘Interior minister Horst Seehofer appreciates his competence in questions of public security.’’
It added that Maassen would not be responsible for supervising the domestic spy agency in his new role. His replacement has not yet been named.
The compromise saves faces all round. It lets the Social Democratic Party claim it secured Maassen’s removal while Seehofer has avoided the outright sacking of an official whose views on migration he shares.
Maassen gave an interview to Bild on September 7 in which he suggested that a widely shared video showing migrants being chased was ‘‘targeted misinformation,’’ possibly aimed at distracting Germans from the killing of a 35-year-old German man, Daniel Hillig, that triggered the rioting. ‘‘I share the scepticism concerning media reports about chases by Right-wing extremists in Chemnitz,’’ he said. ‘‘The BfV has no reliable information that such chases took place.’’
He made the statement before his office had examined the video and he was later forced to backtrack and admit that it was genuine. –