Death of a Nation
Page 84
In March 2004, prior to the histrionics in the Polish Sejm in August 2004, the Friedrich Ebert Institute (Ebert was the first President of the Weimar Republic) invited academics from across Europe to discuss the European dimension of ethnic cleansing in Europe in the twentieth century. This was an effort to broaden the debate and focus on all the victims of ethnic cleansing on the Continent, along with their causes and consequences; from Armenians in 1915, to Greeks in 1919, the Germans and Poles of the Second World War, the French Pied-Noir of Algeria, right through to Srebrenica and Kosovo during the break-up of Yugoslavia. A book outlining some of the notable ideas discussed, including some contributions from the main attendees, was edited by Anja Kruke and published in early 2006.
The head office for the development of the European Network — to examine the history of ‘Forced Immigration and Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe’ — was established in Warsaw in 2005; its declaration is supposed to be the basis on which the Culture Ministers of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak Republics handle issues relating to the European exodus and its remembrance. The centre is to be the focus for a broader, overarching European approach to the subject, to gather more research and witness statements, organise academic conferences, support transnational projects, work on a revision of school text books, create an encyclopedia of expulsions and have a combined Internet portal. They are focusing on the places where atrocities occurred to better inform the local population. Naturally, they also intend to encourage exchanges and better understanding between the regions, between the expelled, the expellers and the new inhabitants. The final aim is to set up a European Institute researching forced immigration and ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe that would receive funding from the EU, Council of Europe, UN and UNHCR rather than having national contributions. From this initiative have flowed many other initiatives, both large and small. The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, supported the founding of an institute to research the history of the Germans in Bohemia at the University of Ústí Nad Labem (Aussig) in 2004. The majority of its contributors want any network, centre, or memorial to be anchored in its ‘proper’ context, particularly that of the ethnic cleansing of Germans, to highlight the point that this did not occur out of the ether, but in large part (if not only) as a response to the horrors inflicted by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Others emphasise the fact that any such memorial cannot and should not, in any way, compare itself to, and thereby directly or indirectly detract from the enormity of, the Holocaust. Both arguments are well founded and well meaning. There are a number of German contributors who favour this alternative, namely to allow the European Network based in Warsaw to tackle the issue of the expulsions, rather than allow the BdV and Erika Steinbach to play a leading role in a centre against expulsions based in Berlin. They believe that the ‘Warsaw approach’ is more likely to gain wider international support than a Berlin-based centre, which would be bound to focus predominantly on the suffering of the German victims of ethnic cleansing, over and above those of others populations that suffered ‘expulsion’ from their homelands.
Whilst I agree with many of the points raised, I do not think that Germans should be forever willing to play down their own suffering, or be afraid of saying that there were also many German victims of the Second World War. The Hungarian historian, Krisztiań Ungváry, was one of the contributors to the conference to discuss the establishment of the European Network. He interestingly advocated a unilateral act by Germany to proceed with the construction of a centre against ethnic cleansing, explaining that whilst it was likely to attract initial criticism, it was also the most likely way to get some real movement on this issue, and encourage a wider, more open and honest debate in all the countries involved. His arguments about the importance of facing up to the lessons of history are compelling. He argued, ‘No state’s legitimacy can be allowed to be based upon criminal acts.’ By this he was specifically referring to the continued inclusion of ‘Beneš decrees’ on both the Czech and Slovak Republic’s statute books — which encouraged the ruthless and barbaric expulsion of German, Hungarian and Jewish minorities from Czechoslovakia. Ungváry went on to argue that, ‘The ideology of a homogeneous nation state is played down (but not changed) in both the Czech and Slovak republics, [and] it is even enshrined in the constitution of Romania! Even though you can trace back the origins of ethnic cleansing to this ideology.’(2) The most important point he makes is that no country on earth has established a greater culture of remembrance, and not least for the darkest sides of its own history, than Germany, and yet it has been hardest of all for Germans to find a language in which they are allowed to express mourning for their own victims. He reminds us that there is no national right of veto to prevent a people mourning their own, or evolving a culture of remembrance, but that the mere threat of such veto could cause more damage to relations between Germany and Poland than the consequence of Germany setting up its own centre against ethnic cleansing. Germany has, after all, admirably faced up to its crimes and erected other worthy monuments to the suffering it inflicted on others; why can she not be trusted to do so for that of her own citizens?
The integration of Germany into Europe has been a key anchor point of the European project since the establishment of the European Union. I agree with Ungváry, that to deny Germans the right to mourn their own victims, and to tell them it would be inappropriate to do so, is not only an insult, but also a real danger for Europe’s future integration. Coming generations will feel nothing but the affront of the ongoing central argument that all Germans share collective guilt, both then and forever, for the crimes of generations past. If Germany is not allowed to be a normal, fully-independent member of the European club, then her citizens may begin to feel they inhabit an emotional open prison in which their rights of expression are continually curtailed by their neighbours.
Steve Crawshaw, in his excellent book, Easier Fatherland, gives a reasoned assessment of where modern Germany is at now, over and above the paranoid fears expressed by some of her eastern neighbours who, even when Germany only wins another football World Cup or bails out another bankrupt nation south of the Alps, still like to ruminate on the possibility of a far-right party emerging again in Germany, as they have in many other European countries over the last decade. In regard to this fear, Crawshaw wrote:
Why not in Germany, too? Such a nationalist party, in line with similar parties elsewhere, might demand an end to all immigration; the restoration to Germany of some or all of the territory it lost after 1945; compensation for the two million who died when they were brutally driven out of their homes at that time, the exclusion of Poland and the Czech Republic from the European Union unless they allow Germans to regain their lost property; and finally, an end to all the talk on every German television channel about Auschwitz and the Third Reich. All of this is theoretically possible, (but)… it must be said: seen from the perspective of today, it does not look likely that a far-right populist politician can achieve a large-scale nationwide success in modern Germany… Even now, Germany seems to feel uncomfortable with its newly powerful role… When Germans talk endlessly about their responsibility for the past, other nations cry: ‘Enough!’ When Germany seems eager to shake off the past, neighbours become wary… But it is fair to say that a repetition of history, even a partial repetition of history, is the least likely option of all… Germany is not about to relapse into the past. History will not repeat itself, as tragedy or as farce. Instead, the country can perhaps begin to move into a normal, dull future at last.(3)
From 3rd December 2006 to 15th April 2007, an exhibition supported by Germany’s President, documenting the history of the expulsions, their human and cultural cost and consequences, the enormous effort of integrating the expellees into post-war Germany, the recording of surviving witness statements and general information on the ongoing debate has opened in Bonn, then Berlin and finally in Leipzig. There is now talk of the exhibition trave
lling to Strasbourg, Brussels and beyond.
The European Network in Warsaw is currently in the doldrums for a lack of support, money and initiatives, whilst the establishment of a centre and museum against ethnic cleansing has cross-party support in Germany and will go ahead, overseen by the Museum of German History, the Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM), with the location being the Deutschlandhaus in Berlin. The permanent exhibition will open its doors in 2016. And finally in 2015, seventy years after the exodus of the Germans, the expellees will receive an annual day of commemoration from 20th June 2015. This date was chosen to coincide with the UN’s World Refugee day.
EUROPE AND HOPES FOR THE FUTURE
Germany was nevertheless a strong advocate for her East European neighbours to receive early membership of the EU, hopeful that binding her neighbours into the European project would eventually lead to greater rapprochement. However, only Britain and Ireland were willing to allow the citizens of Poland and the Czech Republic and other new East European members of the EU club to come and live and work in their countries straight away, in large measure due to their expanding economies before the credit crunch and global downturn in 2008. Due to record unemployment levels and bare state coffers at that time, Germany and the remaining twelve EU member states decided to delay these rights till 2011. In turn, Poland and the Czech Republic specifically singled out Germans with laws restricting the purchase of property by the former expellees until 2016 (by which time very few of even the youngest adults alive at the time of the Exodus will be around, and even many of their children will be pensioners). However, the laws are not watertight; as investment is much needed in the post-Communist East, the laws do not prevent companies buying property or land, and, as described in the earlier chapter on Silesia, it is possible to obtain dispensations.
Fear remains prevalent that, in impoverished areas of the East, rich Germans could simply steam in and buy up half the country. This is highly unlikely, not least after the enormous cost and mutual recriminations at the effort to resuscitate the former East Germany, but the fear is still tangible. Relations are however being forged between the former and new inhabitants of Germany’s pre-war Eastern territories through what has been termed ‘homesickness tourism’. Barred, even from visiting, during the Communist era (anyone who had the German place name of the town in which they were born in their passport, of a town which then subsequently became part of Poland after the war, was automatically refused an entry visa until after the fall of the Wall), tourism has boomed since the fall of Communism in 1989–1990. Presently, it is tourism and some individual and local initiatives that are the most effective mechanisms in helping to break down remaining prejudices. In many ways, cross-border communities, and the initiatives of the in situ minorities and expellees with the new residents of their former homelands, are further along than the efforts of their respective governments.
Otfried Preussler’s story, however, remains typical of millions of others. The author and journalist, whose family originated from northern Bohemia near the city of Reichenberg, returned to the land of his birth after the fall of the Wall to see if his parents’ house in which he grew up still stood. It did, and upon standing outside it he saw a man appear at the window watching him observing the house. Preussler called out in Czech. ‘I used to live here, I’m just passing through and thought I’d take a look.’ He then walked on. After a couple of hundred metres the man whom he had seen in the window ran out after him, attired only in shorts with no shirt or shoes and beckoned Preussler and his wife to come inside. Preussler gladly accepted. However, once inside he was taken aback and suddenly felt as if he’d stepped into a time warp; the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the piano on which he and his brothers and sisters learned to play were all still there. The shirtless man gestured for them to sit down and the man’s wife poured them coffee into the crockery that Preussler’s mother had received as a wedding present. An awkward silence ensued. The Czech gentleman then proceeded to explain that he and his wife had bought the property and paid good money for it. Preussler’s wife saved the day by retrieving photographs of their home in Germany and showing them family pictures, explaining they were very happy where they were. As the Preusslers left, Otfried took a last look at the pictures on the wall, some painted by friends of his father, and then wondered if their Christmas crib was still in the attic. He later reflected that he would rather have bitten his own tongue off than ask for a memento of these stolen relics from his family’s past. When back in his new home Otfried did, however, buy a new piano, the sight of the old one in the house where he’d grown up had given him a longing to play again. What price a house, its mementos, its memories? What price a town, a city, the hills, farms and factories of an entire region? Incalculable and priceless, but clearly not enough for some.
But there are ever more forward-thinking individuals who want to make a virtue of the mixed heritage of regions with a diverse historical, cultural and ethnic past, such as the Mayor of Wrocław (Breslau) in now Polish Silesia (mentioned earlier), as well as the former Czech Ambassador to Berlin, František Černý, who, when asked if Sudeten Germans represented an inherited blood feud, answered:
I wish the exact opposite. In actual fact the Sudeten Germans are the lobby that we possess in Germany itself. These are people who have a bond to the Czech Republic. One naturally infused with bad experiences. However, overall these people have a connection to us. Their roots are here. And that is also true of their children. I know new generations of Sudeten Germans who want to know, ‘Where are we actually from? Where was it, that Grandpa always talked about?’ That is an available capital (resource for the Czech Republic).(1)
This is surely what Europe is all about… or it is about nothing at all. The opening of Europe’s borders will hopefully begin to help heal old enmities, a process that needs to be extended across Europe for the Continent to truly knit together and avoid the creation of new generations rooted in hate.
cccii In an unusual irony, the great philosopher shares his birthday with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, though separated by an interlude of 124 years and an unimaginable gulf in intellect and humanity. Lenin is still revered in Königsberg (Kaliningrad), where his statues remain on display, in a city where the old warrior generation regards the city and the region as a trophy of war.
ccciii For a time, after the collapse of the ‘Pax Sovietica’, and the geographical separation of the Russian part of East Prussia from the rest of Russia (leaving this strip of land an island in what would become EU member states), much discussion arose as to the possible future of the region. Younger Kaliningraders certainly hoped for a ‘European’ future with the help of Germany. However, Vladimir Putin’s former wife was a Kaliningrader and money has since poured in from Moscow to quell any thoughts of renewed German involvement or interest in the region. An old proverb of the Kaliningraders was ‘when the old cathedral has a roof again the Germans will return’. It is a sign of the new-found confidence in Russia that after much debate the old cathedral was restored and a new Russian Orthodox cathedral was built across the square, in the heart of what was once the old town. In 2010, however, the Russian authorties unilaterally (without any thought for the consequences) handed over all the former German churches to the control of the Russian Orthodox Church. This in turn has caused most of the German benefactors who have been paying for their restoration to withdraw further funding.
In their part of the UNESCO natural World Heritage Coastline the Russians discovered oil and despite substantial protests erected an oil platform there in 2006, obviously oblivious to the consequences of potentially losing UNESCO status from a region few have heard of and fewer visit. It is somewhat ironic that oil has been discovered in this former German territory, a stone’s throw from Hitler’s Rastenburg ‘Wolf’s Lair’ HQ, when the Third Reich’s war effort foundered in large measure on a lack of oil! The fate of southern East Prussia, ceded to Poland, was not much better than the north. Polish activists, as late as
1990, continued to demolish German churches, graveyards and other visible signs of the region’s German heritage. The region’s German history is all but ‘ignored’ by the Polish authorities, save the efforts of Dr Edmund Piszcz, the Catholic Polish Archbishop of the former East Prussian region of Ermland (Warmia).
ccciv The special military region of the Kaliningrad Oblast (northern East Prussia), and home of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, remained closed to almost everyone until 1991. As soon as the border was reopened, in the first year 60,000 Heimwehtouristen (‘homesickness tourists’) from Germany came to visit to see if their old schools, homes and churches were still standing. Many were to be disappointed but these are the only tourists that are attracted to what is now a pretty desolate region. For some information on the only German community of any size to survive in the former East Prussia see my comments on the Memelland (Klaipéda region) at the end of this section.(10)