Future German chancellor rejects expellee compensation claims.

Angela Merkel, German Christian Democrat leader slated for the chancellor’s Office, has rejected the compensation claims of German expellees addressed to Poland. In 1945 millions of Germans, who call themselves expellees, were evacuated from areas given to Poland by Stalin at the end of World War II. But Angela Merkel was not against building a centre against expulsions in Berlin, an issue regarded as controversial by Poland.

Speaking at a congress, which brought together 5,000 representatives of Germans expelled from eastern Europe after World War II, Angela Merkel called on the movement to give up their claims for compensation for property left in Poland.

'Compensation claims, advanced for example by the Prussian Trust, are evoking concern in Poland. We will not give them political support.'

Eva Kravczyk of the German DPA news agency says that it is a very important signal. Angela Merkel is a candidate for German chancellor, with her party the CDU topping all popularity polls. The 2 million strong German expellees union constitutes a traditional electorate of the Christian Democrats, who promised to back the idea of a centre against expulsion in Berlin forced through by the expellees leader Erica Steinbach. Merkel reiterated that support at the expellees congress.

' I support the creation of a centre against expulsions in Berlin, a center which will commemorate that tragedy while at the same time promote reconciliation. I take seriously fears expressed in other countries, especially in Poland. But I believe that we have arguments to dispel them.'

In Angela Merkel’s opinion the Berlin centre should be a part of an international network of such institutions, made up of centers created in the south-western Polish city of Wroclaw, in Sarayevo, in the Balkans and in the Armenian capital Yerevan.

The projected centre against expulsions in Berlin has been fiercely criticized in Poland, which says that it should be remembered who started the war in the first place. Former foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek urged Angela Merkel to dissociate herself from the plan. And political analyst, leftist MP Tadeusz Iwinski, who welcomes Merkel’s firm stand on expellee claims, is worried that she supports the Berlin centre project. However, DPA’s Eva Kravczyk believes that Erica Steinbach and her expellees movement will not give up the idea of a centre against expulsions.

Angela Merkel will visit Poland on August 16th, almost exactly a month before the elections in Germany. The problem of the Berlin center is certain to be on the agenda of her talks here.

The "expelles" were Germans living in Poland and the Czech Republic (in lands that were always German Government controlled and were nearly completely German populated) when in 1945 under the Potsdam Conference the Soviet Army deported them to today's Germany. The Soviets then moved millions of Polish people from the Polish border with the USSR to the lands vacanted by the deportation of the Germans. (Basically the USSR grew and Poland and Germany moved West). The "expelles" want their private property back in Poland, but most of today's Poland lives on their former land.

After WW1, some mostly Polish populated lands (that had some Germans on them) were given to form a Polish State, and around a million Germans were placed under Polish control, while tens of millions of Poles were given their own government. Hitler claimed that those lands were German and were wrongfully removed from Germany (and WW2 starts from that), though the lands were mostly Polish. The Germans living on those lands never had their private property stripped away like they would after WW2, but were instead ruled as a minority in a Majority Polish Poland.

Well, actually your description is somewhat skewed. I know, it's a sensitive topic, so I'm going to phrase this as neutral as possible.

"The "expelles" were Germans living in Poland and the Czech Republic (in lands that were always German Government controlled and were nearly completely German populated) when in 1945 under the Potsdam Conference the Soviet Army deported them to today's Germany."

When one reads that paragraph, one might get the completely wrong impression. Only a small number of expellees came areas, where German minorities lived in foreign countries, such as the "Sudetendeutschen" in Czechoslovakia. By far the largest number of deportees came from areas that had been German (or to be more precise: that formed the Prussian heartland, as the German Empire or Kaiserreich came into existence only by 1871) for centuries.

"The Soviets then moved millions of Polish people from the Polish border with the USSR to the lands vacanted by the deportation of the Germans. (Basically the USSR grew and Poland and Germany moved West)."

Germany did not "move west" - that would have meant that parts of France were now German. Instead, Russia expanded, Poland moved west and Germany was deprived of large parts of its land mass. Whether that was just or not, is the point of the whole debate. But it is a fact, that Russia, THE OTHER NATION TO INVADE POLAND, realized its pre-war goals of expansion, only this time at the expense of Germany instead of Poland, as was foreseen in the Molotow-Ribbentrop-pact in 1939. Like it or not, the west in this case just bowed to the Russian agressor (that Germany was an agressor, too, and that the Nazi rule was atrocious, needs no discussion, I'm fully aware of that).

"After WW1, some mostly Polish populated lands (that had some Germans on them) were given to form a Polish State, and around a million Germans were placed under Polish control, while tens of millions of Poles were given their own government."

Here you omit the fact, that some areas, where Germans were BY FAR the majority (and where the population in referendums decided that these areas should belong to the German republic, referendums that were later overturned), were also placed under Polish control, for example to grant Poland access to the Baltic sea. This played a HUGE role in the years following 1918, as Germans basically felt that they had been screwed by the western powers. A popular sentiment around 1930 was: "I don't really like that Hitler guy, but we definitely have to get back at the French!".

"Hitler claimed that those lands were German and were wrongfully removed from Germany (and WW2 starts from that), though the lands were mostly Polish."

The problem is: For many, many years, there was no such thing as a "Poland", as Russia bordered directly on Prussia (just read about the Napoleonic wars and that kind stuff and you will know what I mean), with the Polish being a cultural minority in both countries (with most Poles living on the Russian side), just like the Basque people or the Catalans in Spain.

So the problem is somewhat more complex:

With the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 Russia basically ceded control over Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and other areas to the German empire. Only this allowed for the creation of "Poland" in 1918. Had Germany also surrendered on the eastern front in WWI, there wouldn't have been a Poland. Of course, it appears somewhat "fair" that Germany should give up claim over the spoils of war and that the peoples living there should gain independence.

It also makes sense that that areas, where the Polish were the majority, should belong to the new Polish state.

The problem was, that it didn't stop at that. Thus the impression that also (some, not THAT many, I admit) regions that wanted to belong to the Germany republic in 1918 were FORCEFULLY integrated into a Polish state, had a detrimental effect on the German mass psyche.

"Hitler claimed that those lands were German and were wrongfully removed from Germany (and WW2 starts from that), though the lands were mostly Polish. The Germans living on those lands never had their private property stripped away like they would after WW2, but were instead ruled as a minority in a Majority Polish Poland."

Again, the problem is: If all the claims of the nationalist right during the Weimar republic had been lies, they would have been looked at as buffoons. But there was a grain of truth in it: Germany had suffered a great injustice in the Treaty of Versailles (which was, by the way, a result of French agitation, the U.S. had a much more balanced approach), and this feeling of injustice festered, which played a certain part in the rise of Hitler (but it would be far to simple to say that the treaty of Versailles was the only reason for the Nazi regime).

So now, finally, my personal comment: The thing is, that sometimes there can be no true justice.

Certainly, annexing German territories was, in a certain sense, "unjust".
Certainly, moving Poland westward was "unjust".
Certainly, the west giving in to Stalin and thus sacrificing the east European peoples to the communist agressor was "unjust".

But if we all just demand "justice", we will end up as Palestinians. Sometimes one also needs a sense of practicality, after all, Germans need to get along with the Polish TODAY and vice versa.

P.S: I wanted to include this map, but frankly, I have no clue how to insert pictures, so I will just have to give the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map_of_Poland_%281945%29.png

I was merely trying to write a brief history from what I knew. (I'm not a German nor a Pole nor a Russian trying to write a biased history). You helped clean up my summary, and you did that well, and I generally agree with your points, yet I disagree in a couple of places.

Yes the majority of the expelles came from Prussia; but in fact, millions of Germans were expelled from across Eastern Europe as the Red Army came West in 1945, from the Sudetenland, Transylvania, the Banat, The Volga River Valley in Russia, the Baltic States, and the Ukraine. The modern expelles' movement is not entirely centered on "justice"; in Poland but across Eastern Europe.

The lands taken from German at the End of WW1 to create Poland were for the most part Polish. However, in areas of strong German minorities such as in Silesia, plebiscites were held, and in the end North Silesia voted to join Germany, and South Silesia went to Poland. Though minorities were left stranded in each. The Polish were given without a plebiscite the "Polish Corridor to the sea". Rightfully so, it was full of Rural Polish Farmers. However, to utilize the access to the sea, the Poles needed a port, and the only one near the corridor was Danzig. So Danzig though 90% German was set aside as a free city so that the Poles could actually ship their goods and so the Germans were not left stuck in Poland. However, in preventing Poland from being land locked, Germany was left split as East Prussia was also 90% German and was left for Germany. From what I can tell the Treaty of Versailles did the best it could in accommodating both the Germans and the Polish (though still messy). However, it is possible that the polish corridor could have been left to Germany and in the process leaving Poland landlocked and Germany united.

Germany was hurt the most however by the War Reparations that the Allies forced on her. The new German government had nothing to do with the war's responsibility and by tagging them with the faults of Germany's previous administration, it was never given a chance, and Germany's economy was never let to recover and was left billions in debt. Hitler talked a lot of German being ripped apart, but the hardest hit on Germany for most people was the economic situation created by the reparations. And with the economic situation going poorly the People voted to change that and the Nazis happen to be the only ones talking about dropping the reparation payments, the source of the economic problems.

I too agree that Germany needs to get over the expelle's movement, and I too could not post a map due to my lack of technological abilities.

Although I wish for several reasons that Angela Merkel will become the next chancellor, the relations between Poland and Germany will be much more complicated under her reign than under Schroeder.

The reasons are simple: In difference to Schroeder she has to consider the interests of the expelled, since they are a fundamental part of her own party, the "conservative" CDU. Therefore it is quite likely, that a change in the politcal leadership in Germany is going to lead to a a centre against expulsions in Berlin, which will be focused on the suffering of German victims of the final phase of WWII. I am afraid, that Poland and the Czech republic have only little possibility to take influence on certain decisions in Berlin if the CDU/CSU will make the race. The new gouvernment under Merkel will also put some pressure on the Czechs because of the continuous validity of the Beneš-Dekrees.

All this BS will lead to some irritations, but not to real problems between our countries, because Merkel will not emphasize on material compensation. => Nothing but hot air. Personally I would prefer working on the future instead of stiring up senseless old BS.

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