Germans, Poles clash over personnel of WWII center

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday said she will take her time to resolve the latest dispute with Poland over a memorial center to Germans relocated from eastern Europe after the war.

The focus this time is Erika Steinbach, a member of parliament for Merkel's ruling Christian Democratic Union and a champion of the rights of the German expellees. Steinbach, who heads the Federation of Expellees, was nominated last week to sit on the board of Berlin's proposed "Center against Expulsions."

The nomination angered the Poles, who charge that Steinbach seeks to rewrite history by stressing the suffering of the Germans expelled when borders shifted west after the war. Poland argues that Steinbach ignores the fate of millions of Poles and others who were also expelled from their homes, and glosses over Germany's brutal occupation, under which millions of were Poles killed. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

"Our position is tough," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said earlier this week. "For Poland, this person is unacceptable and she will always be an irritant in Polish-German relations."

Merkel is scheduled to meet Tusk in Hamburg on Friday for talks on a joint response to the global economic crisis. But the memorial center, which has been a thorn in relations for years, seems sure to come up.

In Germany, Merkel's coalition partners, the Social Democrats, have also called on her to block Steinbach.

"Our German-Polish friendship does not permit Steinbach to sit on an advisory body" of the center, said the Social Democrats' parliamentary leader Peter Struck.

Oh, and concerning the Steinbach position: I know that Poles will never be able to see this rationally after what Germany did to it in World War 2. But a lot of her position is actually rational and understandable. One of my Grandmothers lost everything except most of her family during the war, not in Poland, but in what is now the Czech Republic. She barely lost a word about it - because she was too busy providing for her family and building a new existence - but I know she was sad that due to the Iron Curtain, she was never able to see her place of birth again until she died, where her family had lived and built up an existence for generations.

I can understand the feelings of a lot of these people that they have been wronged, and that they do not want their plight to be forgotten. When the Nazis went eastwards, they asked the Germans living there for permission as much as they asked everyone else. I'm sure there were many supporters of the Nazis, but there were also a lot of people who weren't asked for their opinion but were just crushed beneath the steam roller called history.

However, there are two reasons why I can understand Polish paranoia against the people who are the most ardent supporters of this project.

1. These people are politically organized, and however unlikely it seems at the moment that they will ever gain enough political leverage in Germany to demand anything from Poland, even a small possibility is too much for you.

2. A lot of those people who protest are assholes. I know Poles like to concentrate their hatred on Steinbach who has become something of a poster child. But if you look at assholes like Rudi Pawelka, Steinbach is a moderate.

The argument about this will go on, but we will find common ground some day, because this part of history will in my opinion not be able to influence the present profoundly.

Poland, Germany and the rest of Europe have many challenges ahead of them, and at the moment the biggest challenge is probably the financial crisis. I understand the Expulgees who want to build a memorial to their exodus, I support the Poles who want it to be sure Germans won't come and try to steal Polish stuff in 10-20 years from now. But most of all, I say that we have bigger fish to fry, and that we are in the process of building a future where we can only get ahead together.

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