Attacks against the Berlin Left: Baden-Württemberg's Interior Minister is now also receiving mail

Now Manuel Hagel is also getting into legal trouble with the Berlin Left Party. The party's legal representation called on the Christian Democratic Interior Minister of Baden-Württemberg to issue a cease-and-desist declaration that was punishable by law. If he does not comply with the request by this Thursday, he will face legal action.

The trigger was Hagel's statements against the Left Party's possible participation in government in Berlin. He told the Bild newspaper, among other things: “The Berlin police are too good for a left-wing clan mayor who wants to take away their resources and powers.” Before the left ruins internal security and turns off the police's lights, the police should be happy to contact him.

The Left accuses the Baden-Württemberg CDU state chairman of having made these statements in his role as state interior minister. In doing so, he is inadmissibly violating “our client’s right to equal opportunities in political competition,” write her lawyers Jasper Prigge and Sascha Wolf in their nine-page brief to Hagel. According to the established case law of the Federal Constitutional Court, state organs are “obliged to maintain neutrality in the political competition between parties”. Hagel violated this.

The warning letter to Hagel is part of several legal steps with which the Left Party and its top Berlin politician Elif Eralp are defending themselves against what they see as defamatory statements from the Union camp. The party and Eralp have already filed a criminal complaint against Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) for insults and slander. On a talk show last Thursday, Dobrindt responded with “Well, yes” to the statement that Eralp was not an anti-Semite.

Federal Economics Minister Katherina Reiche and Schleswig-Holstein's Interior Minister Magdalena Finke were also asked to issue a cease and desist declaration this week. In both cases it concerns posts on social media.

The reason for the action against the rich is a video entitled “Anti-Semitism and expropriation endanger our economy,” which your ministry published on its Instagram channel. It documents a speech by Reich at a conference. In it she describes the Berlin Left, without naming them, as a party “that openly practices anti-Semitism, that scares the Jews in this city, fights Jewish life, and cheerfully welcomes organized crime at election parties.” This is “dangerous for Germany as an investment location”.

Also on Instagram, Finke announced in a post that was also distributed via the official channel of the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of the Interior, with a view to the Left in Berlin: “Anyone who has connections to clan structures, anyone who tolerates hatred of Jews in their own ranks, anyone who has a disturbed relationship with our security authorities must never take responsibility for security.”

Left chairwoman Ines Schwerdtner speaks of a “campaign against us using all means”. She criticized the fact that “propaganda against the left is being made with taxpayers’ money” via official ministry channels was “an abuse of public resources.” The Union is “instrumentalizing the fight against anti-Semitism in order to defend the interests of the super-rich”.