A well-known in Germany until a few years only "insiders" political fringe figure provides again in recent weeks for foreign policy headlines: Erika Steinbach, president of the Association of Displaced Persons (BDV). Should it now - or should not - be appointed to the Board of Trustees of the planned Centre Against Expulsions? Currently it looks as if Erika Steinbach their place in the Board of Trustees will not be able to take. Why?
Germany
The Commissioner of the Polish government, both within and beyond the Oder revered expert on Germany, Concentration camp survivor and former foreign minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski dramatized, the debate on the Personnel Steinbach, threatened by early February with sanctions if the government authorizes a designation Steinbach. He told the Polish news agency PAP also an appeal Steinbach was a "political obscenity" and indulged in comparisons with Holocaust deniers. At 17:02:09 Bartoszewski was received by the Chancellor for a confidential conversation, and returned apparently calmed back to Warsaw.
SPD, FDP and Greens, and now were left - if not already in principle against - rather skeptical or critical of caution regarding the planned center to Expulsions and do now again open front against the candidacy of Erika Steinbach. Gesine Schwan, the Federal Commissioner for the German-Polish relations and would-be President candidate on the second attempt, had announced that she was going sure assume that the SPD accept the nomination of Ms Steinbach and not also the Chancellor sure the German not set-Polish relations through a nomination Steinbach risk will.
Claudia Roth, chairman of Alliance 90/The Greens, said: "It is a deliberate provocation if Erika Steinbach displaced from their federal government now officially on the Advisory Board the Federal Foundation, flight, expulsion, reconciliation nominate 'leaves. ... Chancellor Merkel may be ducking in this most important players, not again. The federal cabinet and particularly the Chancellor must make it clear quickly that Ms. Steinbach the Advisory Council on Foundation does not belong. The 70th Year of the German attack on Poland, we need a decent memory and real signals of reconciliation, not the pandering of ancient columns, the burden for many years, the relations with our Polish neighbors . "
The Chancellor will apparently currently no Steinbach's official decision on the appointment can be announced, while other voices in the CDU and CSU approval signal. The upcoming elections this year will be a colored or other political opinion or accordingly: rhetorical Platzhirschattitüden and take verbal male gorilla posturing - even among the females of the species homo politicus.
The Polish press Erika Steinbach has not only since the government of the Kaczynski twins Episode discovered as a hate figure. It has long been the most famous German ever in Poland. But most of all, when it was in the reign of Kaczynski's the danger from Germany hyped hysterically, the Polish press went with horror news and the front pages: Steinbach as the whip-wielding dominatrix in SS uniform on the ground crawling Chancellor Schroeder is just one glaring example among many. The Steinbach had to serve as a screen for all sorts of nightmares and fears of Polish-haters Germany and secured the unwanted circulation of Polish newspapers and magazines (which partly belong to the German Springer Group).
Bartoszewski had even share because Steinbach, which he once called a "blonde beast" in Poland now as a kind of enemy of the people is and has thrown the whole issue a shadow on the German-Polish relations. Since the government has now taken over Tusk took office in Poland, efforts are being made again to a "normal" relationship with Germany. But a "blond beast" highly stylized Erika Steinbach haunted sustained in Polish minds. Now you can not simply be business as usual and forget the Steinbach-story simple. The ghosts, which are directed do not yield easily to the change of government. Bartoszewski also in Poland come under pressure after he had accused representatives of veterans organizations, have shown his fate in World War II in his memoirs for the German reader market to dramatic than it was in reality. Last year he was booed at a veterans meeting. The enemy tried to Steinbach could be an effective trophy to meet their own reputation in Poland make. Tusk is in principle at the national conservatives in Poland to German friendly and can not afford it, therefore, reasonable in the Causa Steinbach act. He needs a abdicated Steinbach as evidence of his patriotism. In Poland, there is also argued that the government Tusk had removed all anti-German agitators from their bodies and boards of directors and therefore expects the same from the German side: the "elimination" of the alleged "sniper-maker" Steinbach on the German side - an absurd horse-trading.
In Germany, Erika Steinbach was little known in the general population. Only by Polish reactions now means a significant majority in Germany know who she is. Man thinks he knows, simply by assuming times when you hear from the Polish side so loud outcry, then it must already be a abysmally bad person, so something like an ultra right-Nazi heroine. Now we think of misquotes Polish papers just to know about them. Now seems to be a nightmarish ghost with the label "Erika Steinbach to haunt German heads.
Since the beginning of her tenure, Ms. Steinbach fought tenaciously for a Centre Against Expulsions, has consistently emphasized that to the pan-European Topic with regard to the causes and effects go. Reflexively say Polish and German politicians, strangely enough, also, there you go to a revanchist company with the attempt by the reversal of cause and effect of the expulsions. The successfully designed traveling exhibition on the subject of the Kaczynski government at the time concerned with wild allegations proved the opposite.
I add a comment by Afred de Zayas, published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 02.28.2009:
As American observer of the debate on the "Foundation escape, displacement, reconciliation," I welcome the decision of the Bundestag, the memorial in Berlin . I regret, however, establish the Politicization of the debate. It's all about offering great injustice and the need for reflection, so that evictions do not happen in future. There is no disagreement on the history that the German expellees have suffered monstrous.
This was back in 1945 by General Eisenhower's adviser robes Murphy, Bertrand Russell, Victor Gollancz and Albert Schweitzer noted. The current discussion is below the belt, it means scorn and cruelty to the victims. The personal attacks on Erika Steinbach, as representative of the displaced shows how little some politicians and journalists in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic have dealt with the importance of the expulsion of human rights.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose Ayala Lasso of Ecuador, said on 6 August 2005 in the ICC Berlin in the presence of CDU leader Angela Merkel and Erika Steinbach: "I support the idea of an international center to combat population shifts to set up, whose task is not only the documentation and investigation of expulsions in the past should be, but the aim is also to prevent future evictions anywhere in the world by conducting education and increase public awareness of the horrors caused by violent Population shifts caused by developing early warning strategies and supports the efforts of the United Nations in this area. "
both in war and in peace time are expulsion and deportation of international law. The Nuremberg Judgement is operated by the National Socialists" population transfer "clearly convicted. According to Art. 8 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998 apply to evictions as a war crime under Article 7 as a crime against humanity. Expulsion can be described as genocide, if it proved the intent of the distributors state, is an ethnic group, even partially . Zuvernichten This is also the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Court in The Hague. If such is considered Srebrenica genocide, so might even larger massacre during the expulsion of the Germans will be classified as genocide. International law applies equally to all. Jurisprudence à la carte is a contradiction in terms.
In 2000, Erika Steinbach, Peter Glotz, the Foundation Center against Expulsions "in order to study all expulsions, to honor all the victims -. Glotz Unfortunately, not only the German is much too early Steinbach has died. the task with Reason and vision continued. It has already demonstrated its willingness to reconcile several times. If you want, think about whether this willingness in government circles of Poland or the Czech Republic continuously available. In the years 2006 and 2007 organized the Center has excellent traveling exhibition "Forced Paths", inspired by success in the history and of human rights.
Under the Nazi occupation was the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe's immense and unforgettable suffering inflicted. The Polish, Czech, Russian casualties were therefore entitled to restitution. However, legitimate claims can not be achieved through the imposition of collective punishment because of general discrimination and without the careful examination of personal debt. The expulsion of 14 million people at that time was a monstrosity. One would set off to belittle in any way. Human rights are based on the principle of equality of men. All victims of war and tyranny is to remember with reverence, because every single human life is sacred.
The Foundation escape, displacement, reconciliation "is a forum for rapprochement and understanding. But you also need honesty and historical willingness to openly and honestly talk. It is obvious that the German expellees must be represented in this foundation, without limitation, among others, through their elected representative, Mrs Steinbach. In contrast, the Foundation would be meaningless.
The writer teaches international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Foundation Center Against Expulsions.
Tonight, on 1 March 2009, Will be debated this issue in the discussion board for Anne. In the run you can already tell in a blog his opinion http://annewill.blog.ndr.de/2009/02/27/deutsch-polnischer-zoff/ . I wrote the following in it:
I turned 15 was born after the war and have been married for 10 years with a Polish partner. My parents are both from East Prussia. My mother has spent as a young girl up in 1948 in Russian forced labor.
My parents have turned away back in the 50s by the activities of the expellees, sought to find a flawless standard German pronunciation to be never spoken in public about their origins and try to model (West) Germans. They wanted to forget the traumatic events of her youth wanted to take the harsh exclusion in the West by the over-fitting top. How the integration of the refugees! I was born into a pristine West German existence, in the period before 1949 (when my mother came to the West) simply did not occur.
I have a few years ago my family history developed through intensive research in archives and finally feel more and more ground under their feet. Now I must, however, can hold up to critical (deutschen!) contemporaries, that a family-historical reference is now on Polish or Russian policy areas of concern.
In my Polish acquaintances saw the origin of my family simply as a fact. No one feels threatened by it. It is well known by the manipulative to distinguish propaganda in the Polish press and reality. It cares not about simple and lets the public think the politicians what they want.
appear Against this background, my political eggs dances to Ms. Steinbach and her center against expulsions simply absurd. The ghosts in the minds of Polish and German politicians have to mock battles and dissonances that have to do with the Realtiät nothing more. It uses the theme, on both sides of the Oder to pursue their own interests of power.
My parents still have subtle fears that they fear exclusion if you recognizes them as refugees. They are certainly not abused as pollack or Gypsies as they did in the 50s of last century, but want to defame not be of "real" Germans because of their origin as "eternal yesterday".
I think it is a first of the inside 'political problem of how in Germany with the delicate mood of the displaced handle problems. Repression, avoidance, defamation into a dangerous impasse, reveal their excesses in the political debate. Here the policy is the responsibility of finding a clear open mind. The realization of a Center against Expulsions could signal a domestic political be that displaced persons may feel really accepted in the West German Realtität. If for Erika Steinbach has to serve as a "scapegoat" to appease the ghosts in the minds on both sides of the Oder, I think it's deeply regrettable. Only w hen it the thing was really such a sacrifice would seem justified.
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We will see how the story developed. I am surprised that no one has come in the ongoing debate on the idea that a serious reappraisal of the expulsion debate could result in a corresponding center also lead to a more honest integration of the expellees and their descendants in Germany. Darin to see a threat to peace, I find absurd. As long as one among the victims and their descendants still have to worry about the call when one does not only behind closed doors at the family home terms, integration has not really succeeded. 
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