Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Motto Of Sudeten German Days' Extremely Aggressive-Historian

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Motto Of Sudeten German Days' Extremely Aggressive-Historian

    MOTTO OF SUDETEN GERMAN DAYS' EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE-HISTORIAN

    Czech News Agency
    May 29, 2006 Monday

    Munich, May 29 (CTK) - The motto of this year's traditional Sudeten
    German Days that will take place in Nuremberg next weekend is extremely
    aggressive, the most aggressive in the history of these rallies,
    German historian Martin Schulze Wessel says in the daily Sueddeutsche
    Zeitung today. The motto, Expulsion is genocide, does not correspond
    to historic reality, but it indicates those unclear but wide demands
    towards the Czech Republic and clearly harms Czech-German relations,
    Wessel says. "The expulsion is genocide - the future belongs to the
    right for a homeland." Even at the time of the Cold War the Sudeten
    German Landsmannschaft rallies' motto had never been so aggressive.

    What do they mean by this?" the author asks and points out that it
    is no coincidence that the German terms for genocide and expulsion
    differ - they both express evil, but describe different kind of
    injustice. The scientific research of genocides aroused the question
    of where is the line dividing forced transfer and genocide, but only in
    the case of the Holocaust of Jews and the extermination of Armenians by
    Turks in 1915 it is possible to put the sign of equation between both
    terms. Although the expulsion of Germans from the former Czechoslovakia
    was accompanied, especially in the initial phase, by atrocities and
    the deaths of tens of thousands of people were expected there was no
    planned intention of physical extermination of the German-speaking
    population, and the Sudeten Germans had a country that admitted them
    - Germany to which they have integrated with the remarkable effort,
    Wessels says. The fate of the Sudeten Germans was bad enough so why
    there are efforts today to exaggerate it and put it on the level of
    genocide? he asks. It is a political message, but given that the Nazis
    prepared a real genocide of the Czech people since 1940 it can only
    harm Czech-German relations, the says. The second part of this year's
    motto - the future belongs to the right for a homeland - can provoke
    the impression that the Sudeten Germans are interested in restitution
    and compensation. They still have the "return of their homeland back"
    put as a goal in their programme. "If it is viewed metaphorically,
    it is all right but to perceive it very specifically it can mean a
    revisionist goal,"Wessels says. "To put the expulsion on the level
    of genocide creates a moral reproach of the greatest calibre towards
    Czechs and in connection with the right for a homeland it forms the
    basis for the demands of a not quite specified revision," he says. It
    is not therefore surprising that 38 percent of Czechs believe that
    it is possible for the German government to once raise the claim for
    the regions that were populated by Germans in the past or to demand
    the compensation and the same part of the population suspect the
    Landsmannschaft of really pursuing these goals. Only four percent
    of Czechs believe that the Expellees' associations pursue friendly
    contacts, Wessel says. These findings should alarm politicians
    because the image of the nations is also decisive for other decisions,
    for instance, about investments or language studies. Many positive
    initiatives by the Sudeten Germans in Czech-German relations do not
    unfortunately have any chance in this media atmosphere to win over
    the persuasive slogans by expellees' unions' leaders, Wessel, who
    is a deputy chairman of the Czech-German commission of historians
    says. Sudeten German Landsmannschaft leader Bernd Posselt had
    rejected his statements in an interview with the German news agency
    dpa. He described Wessel as a politicising scientist who crosses his
    powers. According to Posselt, modern historical science describes any
    form of expulsion as genocide. The expellees do not want to lacerate
    old wounds but they want to prevent similar events from being repeated
    in the future.
Working...
X