Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted on Monday that she had misjudged her response to allegations of far-right sympathies against Germany’s spymaster, after resolving a row over his redeployment. BfV intelligence agency head Hans-Georg Maassen’s political views came under the microscope this month after he questioned the authenticity of video footage showing radicals hounding migrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz.
Ms. Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), their Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party and the third coalition partner — the centre-left Social Democracts (SPD) — agreed last week to transfer Mr. Maassen to a senior role in the Interior Ministry.
But that prompted a public blacklash when it emerged that Mr. Maassen would also get a pay rise. The coalition rescinded the hike on Sunday, after some members of the SPD called for their party to quit the alliance if it stayed in place.
“I focused too much on functionality and processes in the Interior Ministry and not enough on what moves people, rightly, when they hear of someone’s promotion,” Ms. Merkel told reporters.
