Page 72 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

tre exhibits the violence and suffering/negativity of expulsion” (‘Wir brauchen in Berlin ein “Zen-
linked to displacement and expulsion, but also trum der 15 Millionen”: Ein weißer Fleck muß
which sufferings are, or rather can be, exhibited. aufgearbeitet werden’1999, 5).
16
With what traces, respectively objects, does the At the time, the initiative was welcomed by
exhibition work? What is the status given to the politicians first and foremost of the conserva-
collection and the objects displayed and how do tive CDU/CSU in power, but also by some SPD
they relate to the narrative? And finally, I will MPs of the Bundestag (such as Peter Glotz).
17
question what goal a documentation centre ded- It happened against the backdrop of an in-
icated to “flight and expulsion” of Germans can creased focus on the German victims of World
have in Germany today? War II in public debates and a discourse about
the lack of national recognition of their suffer-
The Mission of the Foundation Flight, ings in German national memory in the media,
72 Expulsion, Reconciliation: Squaring but also among writers and essayists (Rauschen-
the Circle
As stressed by minister Monika Grütters dur- bach 2008, 180). In the context of the approach- ti
studia universitatis hereditati, letnik 11 (2023), številka 2 / volume 11 (2023), number 2
ing eastern enlargement of the EU, however, the
ing the opening, the Documentation Centre for activities of Federation of expellees and its Foun-
Displacement, Expulsion, and Reconciliation is dation Centre against expulsions were closely
the result of decades of bitter disputes. The in- followed by Germany’s eastern neighbours (the
itiative goes back to the newly elected Presi- expelling countries). They soon took a highly ta
dent of the Federation of expellees Erika Stein- contentious turn and started seriously threaten-
13
bach, when she expressed the wish in 1999 to ing the government’s commitment to pacifying
14
“create in Berlin a ‘Centre of the 15 million’”
(‘Wir brauchen in Berlin ein “Zentrum der 15 16 Motion adopted by the Federal executive board and the
Praesidium of the Federation of expellees on 20 March 1999
Millionen”: Ein weißer Fleck muß aufgearbeitet (‘Wir brauchen in Berlin ein “Zentrum der 15 Millionen”: di
werden’ 1999, 5) which became one year later, Ein weißer Fleck muß aufgearbeitet werden’ 1999, 5). In fact,
Steinbach reactivated a claim made a decade earlier by Hart-
on 6 September 2000, the Foundation Centre mut Koschyk, the Secretary general of the BdV, to transform
against Expulsions (Stiftung Zentrum gegen Ver- the Berlin memorial to “Flight and expulsion” into a “Cen-
tral memorial to the remembrance of the 14 million victims
15
treibungen). In Steinbach’s opinion, “Germany of the flights and expulsions ... where more than 2 million
need[ed …] for this dramatic and incisive part of people died”, as well as to commemorate “the unicity of the
pan-German history a central information, doc- crime against humanity”. If Koschyk did not specify at the here
time how this transformation should occur and what it con-
umentation, archival and meeting site in Ber- cretely meant, he nevertheless wanted to add to this central
lin, with permanent and changing exhibitions, memorial the creation of a commission of historians which
was supposed “to deal with the reappraisal of the expulsions”
about the way of sorrow of the 15 million victims (‘Koschyk fordert zentrale Gedenkstätte’ 1990, 2).
Apart from the fact that there had already been such an
13 Erika Steinbach, who was the head of the federation of ex- officially appointed commission, headed by the histori-
pellees (Bund der Vertriebenen – BdV) from 1998 to 2014, an Theodor Schieder, that had published a series of vol-
was also a member of the conservative wing of the CDU umes of documentation about the crimes of expulsions
(Christian Democratic Union), and an MP at the Bunde- (Beer 1998), this statement is not only highly problem-
stag between 1990 and 2017 when she resigned from the atic because of the qualification of expulsion as a unique
CDU fraction. After 2017 she did not run anymore but crime against humanity which puts it on a level with the
supported the AfD in the federal elections. Holocaust – a rhetoric typical of the Expellees associa-
14 A provocative way of calling the BdV’s project because of tions – but also in in the numbers cited. (About the num-
the implicit reference to the six millions Jews that were bers see the very precise counting by Hahn and Hahn
killed by the Nazi (Dakowska 2003) which was soon aban- (2010, 698–705).)
doned for the more neutral Foundation Centre against Ex- 17 Whereas the first ones claimed it was necessary to remedy
pulsions. a “blind spot” of history, an old anthem of the federation
15 A name that was less polemic for an institution whose cre- of expellees and of Steinbachs, the social democrats insist studiauniversitatis
ation can be seen as a reaction to the adoption by the Bun- more on the disinterest, the cold heartedness and lack of
destag of a resolution on the creation of a central memorial empathy of the leftists towards the Expellees and their suf-
to the murdered European Jews (called Holocaust Mahn- ferings. Cf. ‚Rede vom Bundesinnenminister Otto Schily,
mal) on 24 June 1999. am 29 Mai 1999 im Berliner Dom’ (1999).