Merkel removes spy chief to defuse row over far right

Hans-Georg Maassen was at the centre of a controversy, with many calling for his firing

Angela Merkel’s government on Tuesday removed domestic spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen from office, transferring him to a different post to defuse an explosive row over immigration and the far right that once more rocked the German chancellor’s fragile coalition.

“Mr Maassen will become state secretary in the interior ministry,” Merkel and the leaders of her coalition parties announced in a statement after crisis talks.

The face-saving compromise lets Merkel’s fourthterm government live to see another day, after her Social Democratic coalition partners had insisted on Maassen’s departure as head of the BfV intelligence service, against the wishes of Interior Minister Horst Seehofer from her Bavarian CSU sister party.

Maassen, 55, was at the centre of a heated controversy after he raised doubts about the veracity of reports of farright hooligans and neo-Nazis randomly attacking immigrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz in late August.

In his senior new role, essentially a promotion, Maassen will not be responsible for supervising the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the party leaders stressed in their statement.