Christel Wegner

Wegner gained widespread attention after she made controversial statements during a television interview in February 2008 with the NDR. She said "I believe that, when one creates another kind of society, one will need such a structure again, because one has to protect oneself against other forces, reactionary forces who use the opportunity and weaken such a state from the inside." The program suggested that "such a structure" referred to the GDR Secret Police organisation the Stasi. In reply, in a personal statement, Wegner declared: "What I really said was that every state has a secret service and that this is of course also the case for a socialist state" and that she did not in fact "want the Stasi back". The DKP politician also declared that a reason for the construction of the Berlin Wall was to keep West Germans out of the GDR, "''both to prevent them from hurting the economy by buying goods cheaply and also to keep out forces one didn't want there.''" ==Expulsion from The Left parliamentary group==

On 18 February 2008, the Die Linke Lower Saxony parliamentary group issued a statement saying that she had been expelled from their parliamentary group and urged her to give up her seat in the assembly. ==Die Linke and the German Communist Party==

The controversy led to calls from central figures in Die Linke to end any cooperation with the German Communist Party. Both Die Linke and the DKP are under surveillance by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz due to alleged leftwing extremist tendencies. ==Political affiliations==

Wegner was a member of the German Communist Party (DKP), the Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime (VVN-BdA), the labor union Ver.di and a paying/passive member of Greenpeace. ==References==