Germany's Foreign Policy Towards Poland and the Czech Republic: Ostpolitik Revisited by Karl Cordell & Stefan Wolff

Author:Karl Cordell & Stefan Wolff [Cordell, Karl & Wolff, Stefan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Diplomacy, Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9780415369749
Google: CAKaDwxmUggC
Publisher: Psychology Press
Published: 2005-01-15T09:30:35+00:00

Unreconstructed irredentism or reconciliation? A new opportunity for the expellees

The collapse of communism came as unexpectedly for the expellee organizations as it did for the German government. Yet between the two, the perception of the opportunities arising from the dramatic events in 1989/1990 was rather different. Government policy, which was aimed at achieving unification, at the price of abandoning all territorial claims and formally guaranteeing the borders of the GDR as those of the united Germany was seen as unacceptable and treacherous by many in the leadership of the BdV. Instead, activists proposed that a referendum be held in (Polish) Silesia under the motto Frieden durch freie Abstimmung (Peace through Free Choice). This strange initiative raised completely unrealistic hopes among many members of the German minority in Poland, particularly in rural Upper Silesia where the response to the signature campaign in support of the referendum had been strong. These hopes were dashed when Chancellor Kohl declared at an event celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the Charter of the German Expellees in 1990 that the recognition of the Oder–Neiße line as Germany's eastern frontier was the price that had to be paid for the reunification with East Germany.13

Even though a border question similar to that between Germany and Poland never existed in the relationship between the Federal Republic and Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic, the rhetoric of expellee activists has, if anything, been more aggressive on the Sudeten German issue. This became particularly obvious in a 1991 collection of essays written by leading figures of the Sudeten German community on the obligation of the Sudeten Germans vis-à-vis their homeland (Eibicht 1991). In one of the essays, Harry Hochfelder (1991: 58), a member of the Sudeten German Council and the Sudeten German Academy of Sciences and Arts, demanded that the:

restitution [of property] has to be handled in a way that the ethnic group [of Sudeten Germans] can exercise unlimited sovereignty in its homeland. Certainly there will be emigration of the non-German population currently living in the area, for which incentives have to be made available, but which must not be forced.

Roland Schnürch, Vice President of Federal Assembly of the Sudeten-deutsche Landsmannschaft, stated the claims of some Sudeten Germans to Czech territory even more forcefully. He ‘decisively’ rejected the ‘belonging of the Sudetenland to any Czechoslovak state’. From this, he concluded that ‘the border question has not yet been solved’ (Schnürch 1991: 83). Another contributor, Willi Wanka (1991: 75), a member of the advisory committee on foreign affairs of the Sudeten German Council, insisted that ‘without the return of the Sudeten areas to the Sudeten Germans, there will be no resolution of the Sudeten German question’.

In order better to understand the attitude of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft, it would be just as well to pause at this juncture, and consider the nature of Sudeten ‘expellee’ society in Germany. Of all the various expellee groups, they are the most cohesive, and have been the most adept at maintaining a collective identity (Hahn 2001: 254). They not only

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