Outgoing German spy chief stirs coalition row
German interior minister Horst Seehofer faced calls on Monday to dismiss the outgoing head of domestic intelligence from a new advisory role, after the spy condemned “naive and leftist” government policies and said he might enter politics.
The remarks, made at a closed meeting of European intelligence chiefs and published by the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Monday, threatened to reopen a rift that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fractious coalition had only just patched up.
Seehofer once before rescued chief spy Hans-Georg Maassen from dismissal when he questioned the authenticity of videos showing far-right extremists chasing immigrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz.
This time Maassen, whose agency monitors extremist threats to Germany’s constitutional order, compared the videos to Russian propaganda and presented himself as the victim of a witch-hunt by “radical left forces” in the Social Democratic Party (SPD), junior partner in Merkel’s coalition.
“I’m seen in Germany as a critic of idealistic, naive and leftist foreign and security policy,” he said. “I can imagine a life outside public service, for example in politics or business.”
Many on the right in Germany are particularly scornful of what they see as Merkel’s liberal immigration policy, backed by the SPD. Germany has admitted about 1-million mostly Muslim asylum seekers since the 2015 migration crisis.
Even before Maassen’s remarks were published in full, the SPD and opposition parties had been demanding his sacking for overstepping the bounds of neutrality German public servants are expected to observe.
The interior ministry said Seehofer, himself facing calls to quit as head of his Christian Social Union after it lost its majority in October’s Bavarian regional election, would decide on Maassen’s fate after a probe into the speech.