Expulsion Not Just a German Issue

The campaign to build a controversial "Center of Expulsion" in Berlin suffered a severe blow this week, after German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said he did not intend to grant it a home in Germany.

The Association of German Expellees (BdV) had been pressing the German government for a building in Berlin to house the center, intended to provide a focal point for the expulsions which took place across Europe in the 20th century. But Schröder said he believes the project -- which is supported by several prominent left-wing intellectuals in Germany -- would be better off housed in another central European country. The certer, he said, should be "Europeanized."

"I am asking the Association of German Expellees to reconsider whether Berlin really is the right place," Schröder explained to reporters on Thursday. He said by housing the center in Berlin, Germans would run the risk of being at the forefront of the expulsion debate and the historic reasons why millions were expelled from their homes during the 20th century could become blurred. Although millions were expelled from their homelands during the last century as the continent's boundaries were re-drawn time and time again through war, it is the 15 million ethnic Germans who were expelled from former Nazi-occupied territories at the end of World War II who draw the most attention.

Challenging traditional thinking

But the head of the BdV, Erica Steinbach, argued that the German capital is the perfect home for the center, where she wants to see the establishment of a permanent exhibition on the fate of German expellees.

The association's vice president, Peter Glotz, added it was now acceptable to rethink the traditional line on the expulsion of ethnic Germans following the war. Although, their forced exit from the Sudeten lands in the current-day Czech Republic, for example, clearly had its roots in the atrocities commited by Germany under Adolf Hitler, Glotz, a Social Democrat parliamentarian, said it is now becoming "acceptable" to also admit what happened to German expellees was unjust.

Prominent critics advise European-focus

But the plans to house the center in Berlin have several critics other than Gerhard Schröder, including Nobel Prize-winning author Günther Grass, who himself grew up in Danzig, now in present day Poland, and the president of the German Parliament Wolfgang Thierse. Along with Polish and Czech intellectuals, who oppose giving the center a Berlin home, they say granting the BdV's wishes could re-ignite nationalist ideas in Germany.

According to them, a more European-focused center should be created. And various non-German cities including the formerly German Breslau, now Wroclaw in Poland, or the city of Görlitz-Zgorzelec on the German-Polish border have been suggested as possible sites.

It is a view that Schröder agrees with: "I think if you made it a more European issue and had a discussion about the issue of expulsion generally ... the suffering it causes and how we can prevent such things happening again in Europe, that would be more suitable," he said on Wednesday.

The President of the Czech Senate, Petr Pithartt has also suggested the center could be built in the Czech Republic. This is a move that follows plans by the government there to set aside €1.5 million in compensation to the 3,000 ethnic Germans expelled from the Sudeten lands after the collapse of the Nazi regime.

Czech Prime Minister Vldimir Spidla told German news agency dpa: "For me there is no question. I do not believe that it is a good choice (to house the center in Berlin)." Deputy State Premier in Prague, Petr Mares, added: "It was a chapter in a string of tragic events, that (deeply) affected (the whole of) central Europe."

But whether Schröder will succeed in keeping expulsion off the German agenda remains to be seen. The BdV says the German government's view will not play a decisive role in the final decision of where the center will be housed. It says it is independent and has already raised significant funds towards building a headquarters for the center.