CDU Chairman Friedrich Merz is scheduled to visit the bereaved family of Kassel Regional President Walter Lübcke on Monday, seven years after his murder. Merz’s party colleague was shot by a right-wing extremist late on June 1, 2019. The news magazine “Focus” reported on the chairman’s visit to Hesse based on information from party circles.
The murder of the CDU politician led the party’s executive board to reaffirm its commitment against cooperating with the AfD weeks after the crime, a decision that had originally been made at a party conference in 2018.
Tensions had arisen between Merz and the widow of the former Kassel Regional President a year prior. Following demonstrations outside the CDU party headquarters protesting the joint cooperation between the Union and AfD in the Bundestag, Merz stated, “I want to ask everyone out there, Antifa and anti-right: Where were you when Walter Lübcke was murdered in Kassel by a right-wing fanatic?”
Irmgard Braun-Lübcke described these remarks as “very disconcerting” in a statement. She countered that, contrary to the portrayal by the then-opposition leader and candidate for Chancellor Merz, there was, in fact, “a strong, broad societal commitment to our democracy and its values” following her husband’s assassination. She noted that thousands of citizens-including left-wing, liberal, and conservative democrats-took to the streets in Wolfhagen, Kassel, and many other locations across Germany.
Merz’s visit occurs at a time when there is an increased internal discussion within the CDU regarding the “firewall” against the AfD.
