The economist Max Otte is the new chairman of the CDU-affiliated union of values. In the past, Otte had announced that she wanted to vote for the AfD.
Fulda – With 115 to 103 votes, Max Otte prevailed against the Bavarian tax officer Juliane Ried and is now chairman of the CDU-affiliated union of values. In the past, Otte had drawn attention to himself with AfD-friendly statements. In 2017, he announced in an interview with Wirtschaftswoche that he wanted to give the AfD his vote in the Bundestag election at the time.
Within the CDU, of which Otte is still a member, the professor at the time confessed to being an outsider: “I am taking a great risk and will be blacklisted. I accept major disadvantages. But my conscience still drives me to do it, ”he justified his decision to vote in 2017 for the AfD.
Union of Values boss Otte 2017: “AfD, except for Höcke, not right-wing radical”
When asked how he deals with the “right-wing extremist wing of the AfD”, Otte replied to Wirtschaftswoche 2017: “Björn Höcke in Thuringia actually seems to me to be right-wing extremist. It has to be watched. But with the exception of Höcke, the AfD is not right-wing extremist for me. ”Because the AfD, according to Otte, is“ 90 percent a bourgeois-conservative party and not radical. ”Anyone who believes that Otte is“ radicalizing ”must“ be Rethink the worldview. “
Accordingly, Otte confirmed that she wanted to remain in the CDU: “I have nothing to complain about in the party program. The CDU urgently needs sensible people. Apparently there is less of it than in the AfD. ”In three points, Otte said in the same interview, the AfD is closer to the AfD than the CDU: in immigration policy, in“ policy for the middle class ”and if it is“ that European home and peace with Russia ”.
From 2018 to 2021 Otte was chairman of the board of trustees of the AfD-affiliated Erasmus Foundation
In 2018 he took over the chairmanship of the board of trustees of the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation. In 2021 he resigned from this position and justified this step with the “wrong direction” in which the foundation headed by Erika Steinbach had developed. Previously, he had been involved there “to be a bracket in the bourgeois camp, between the AfD on the one hand and the CDU / CSU on the other.”
He was critical of AfD party leader Jörg Meuthen that the AfD’s internal dispute was “largely due to the party chairman”, Otte is indirectly quoted in the same article at the time. In 2017, in an interview with Wirtschaftswoche, Otte Meuthen certified that she had “my heart in the right place”. Otte is said to have justified his departure from the Board of Trustees of the Erasmus Foundation with the words that he was of the opinion “that the AfD will not have a chance in the long run in the party spectrum without the involvement of the so-called national-conservative wing.”
Max Otte distances himself from Lübcke tweet, union of values calls for expulsion from the CDU
According to Tagesspiegel 2019, Otte wrote on Twitter: “Lübcke – finally the main extreme [sic] a new NSU affair and can rush. It all looks like the killer was a less well-off lone perpetrator, but the media are already rushing against the ‘right-wing scene’, whatever that is. Right-wing extremism. ”
Thereupon the Union of values on Twitter “the CDU headquarters” to consider an expulsion of Otte from the party. Otte later distanced himself with the words “Due to the many reactions I would like to make clear: I apologize if I have hurt feelings in the Lübcke murder case and express my heartfelt condolences to the family” from his tweet.
Union of Values boss Otte: “CDU should sound out the possibility for bourgeois coalitions with the AfD”
In February 2020, the taz quoted Otte as saying: “I know a number of members, including high-ranking members, who would like to work with the AfD.” However, they would only “dare” to “speak it out privately”. In addition, Otte is quoted with the demand: “Personally, I am of the opinion that the CDU should explore the possibility of bourgeois coalitions with the AfD at all levels.”
| Name | Dr. Max Otte |
| job | Economist, Head of the Institute for Asset Development |
| Political party | CDU |
| Alter | 56 years (October 7, 1964) |
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Now Max Otte is chairman of the union of values that even wanted to exclude him from the CDU two years ago and which the former President of the Constitutional Protection and current CDU Bundestag candidate Hans-Georg Maaßen joined in 2020. Gundolf Siebeke, also a member of the registered association, writes on Twitter: “I am a founding member of the WertUnion, belonged to the federal board for 2 years, internally since 2017 warned in vain about the aggressive approach.” Shackle the shots. It’s a shame, WU was a real opportunity. I’m leaving. ”
Relationship between CDU and AfD also before the election in Saxony-Anhalt topic
But it is not only the election of Max Otte as the new Union of Values chairman that is the subject of discussion regarding the relationship between the CDU and AfD. In the run-up to the election in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD could replace the CDU as the strongest force, the way the local CDU deals with the AfD has been criticized.
The chairman and candidate for Chancellor of the Greens, Annalena Baerbock, recently put her assessment on record that CDU Prime Minister Rainer Haseloff “obviously does not have his party completely behind him” and that the “centrifugal forces to the right” within the Saxony-Anhalt CDU are “enormous “. In 2019, according to the German press agency, CDU parliamentary group vice-president Lars-Jörn Zimmer had his share in a memorandum in which it was demanded that “the social again be reconciled with the national”. (Mirko Schmid)
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