ODF News in English

German minority in Poland to get own radio station?

2011-10-28T12:54:38Z

The German minority in the Opole [Oppeln] region, southern Poland, is planning to set up a regional radio station which would go on air in 2012.

The move comes off the back of an announcement by Parliament�s sole German minority MP, Ryszard Galla, who said that documents for the radio�s concession to broadcast are to be filed by the end of November.

The station would be based in Opole [Oppeln], and would broadcast throughout the province as well as the western fragments of the Silesian province, including Gliwice [Gleiwitz], as well as eastern portions of the south-western Lower Silesian [Upper Silesia / Oberschlesien] province.

However, the German minority station would not just broadcast programmes in the language. �Due to concessionary stipulations, we have to broadcast 30 percent of our programming in Polish,� Galla told MPs, adding that the station�s mission will be to provide news and educational programmes.
...

German Minority Youth Association HQ vandalised

2011-10-17T12:52:44Z

Graffiti has been daubed on the offices of the Youth Association of the German Minority in Poland and a swastika painted on a car belonging to a member of the organization in Opole [Oppeln], southwestern Poland [Upper Silesia / Oberschlesien]. - The vandalism was reported to local police on Friday afternoon. - Given that the use of Nazi symbols is illegal in Poland, Maciej Milewski, a spokesman for the city's police, said that the painting of the swastika, �will be treated as the propagation of fascism�. - Around 104,000 ethnic Germans live in the Opole region, some 71 percent of Poland's entire German minority.

EU ministers approve Klaus� human rights opt-out bill

2011-10-11T06:58:05Z

EU foreign ministers have given their approval for a Czech bill on an opt-out from the human rights charter in the Lisbon Treaty

The EU�s foreign ministers have given provisional approval for the ratification of an opt-out from the EU Charter of Human Rights called for by Czech President V�clav Klaus. If formally accepted, as is expected, the opt-out will be put to the Czech legislature at the same time as the bill on ratification of Croatia�s EU membership.

The Czech opt-out was put forward by Klaus as a condition of his signing the bill of ratification of the Lisbon Treaty passed by the Czech parliament in 2009. His refusal to sign off on the bill before receiving assurances that the Czech Republic would be allowed to vote to on an opt-out from the Charter of Human Rights resulted in the country being the last EU member state to pass the treaty.

The issue will be put to the EU summit on October 23, but the vote by member states� leaders should be a formality following approval approval by their respective foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday.
...

Russian lawmakers slam plan to rename Kaliningrad

2011-09-21T17:13:52Z

Russian State Duma deputies on Tuesday criticized a proposal for a referendum on returning to the city of Kaliningrad its historical name, Konigsberg.
The city is the administrative center of the Kaliningrad Region, Russia's westernmost exclave on the Baltic Sea, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
Originally named Konigsberg in German, the town was part of Prussia and then of Germany until 1945, but was largely destroyed during World War II. It was occupied by the Soviet Army in 1945 and was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 in honor of Mikhail Kalinin, a high-ranking Soviet official.
Kaliningrad Governor Nikolai Tsukanov was quoted on Monday as saying a referendum could be held on the issue.
"If he did that, he should be fired," said Yelena Afanasyeva, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.
The next step after the renaming could be the desire to separate the region from the Russian Federation, she added.
Communist Vladimir Nikitin criticized the idea as "a well through move to split our society."
He urged the governor to think twice, warning him that such remarks could cost him his political career.

Telling the Soviet story - A new film about Nazi-Soviet links

2011-05-08T12:47:05Z

BEING burnt in effigy on the streets of Moscow by nationalist hoodlums must count as a kind of Oscar if you are a Latvian filmmaker whose aim is to expose modern Russia's blindness to the criminal history of the Soviet Union. The ire of Young Russia's protest outside the Latvian embassy this week was directed at Edvins Snore, whose film �Soviet Story� is the most powerful antidote yet to the sanitisation of the past.

The film is gripping, audacious and uncompromising. Though it starts by telling the story of the murder of 7m Ukrainians in 1933, it is no mere catalogue of atrocities. The main aim of the film is to show the close connections�philosophical, political and organisational�between the Nazi and Soviet systems.
...

Havermann: New film broaches taboo topic of post-war expulsions

2010-11-27T14:57:46Z

The movie "Habermann" tells the tragic tale of the Germans and Czechs living in the Sudetenland from the day the Nazis marched in until the Germans were expelled after World War II. That history remains a touchy topic.

The expulsion and murder of the so-called "Sudeten" Germans by war-weary Czechs after World War II traumatized the German-Czech relationship. Decades later the two countries are both part of the European Union and share an open border. Yet the fate of the three million Sudeten German expellees has remained a sensitive topic.
...

Poland Up In Arms Over Erika Steinbach Statements

2010-09-10T12:02:07Z

As the German people address await crucial and numerous decisions from their leaders, the government here seems to drift farther apart still. The latest conflict between officials stems from comments made by Erika Steinbach about Poland�s part in the onset of WWII. An undersecretary of foreign affairs in the Merkel cabinet waded in today condemning Steinback�s comments. At a time when good relations between EU members seems crucial, the EU seems more like a powder keg than a unified continent.
...

German expellee groups reassert their history as charter turns 60

2010-08-05T17:36:05Z

Critics have questioned the role of ethnic German expellee communities forced to leave their homes after World War II. As the Charter of German Expellees turns 60, the groups have reasserted their presence.

Bundestag President Norbert Lammert spoke out Thursday against the proposal for an official national day of remembrance for German World War II expellees, saying such a day would ultimately not contribute to public awareness on the subject.

Speaking on German public radio on the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Charter of German Expellees, Lammert said the German calendar was already full of routine yearly commemorations. He argued that the celebration of significant anniversaries would bring more attention to the cause of ethnic Germans expelled from their homelands in Eastern Europe after the war.
...

Germany's strengthened expellees' associations

2010-02-12T21:14:53Z

Erika Steinbach, president of Germany�s Federation of Expellees (BdV), has said she will not take a seat on the foundation board of the Centre against Expulsions, a museum dedicated to the victims of flight, displacements, forced resettlements and deportations.

Tories may pull out troops from Germany

2009-11-20T21:13:53Z

British troops could be withdrawn from Germany by a future Tory government if other Nato states agreed to take over the UK's commitments there, the shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox, has said. Fox said it is "no longer necessary" to keep 20,000 military personnel in Germany, nearly 70 years after the end of the second world war. Ending the deployment would free up forces to carry out vital Nato operations outside Europe, he said.

German expellees leader raises pressure on Merkel

2009-11-17T21:12:47Z

FRANKFURT, Nov 17 (Reuters) - German conservative politician Erika Steinbach on Tuesday reaffirmed her desire to head a new World War Two museum, raising the pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to settle a major dispute within her coalition. Steinbach, head of the League of Expellees and a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), has been a driving force behind the museum, which will depict the plight of Germans and other groups forced out of eastern Europe after the war.

Germans criticize Czech demand for Lisbon Treaty opt-out

2009-10-12T21:11:37Z

With Poland's signature on the Lisbon Treaty in the bag, there is just one left to collect. But that is easier said than done, as the president of the Czech Republic appears at pains to demonstrate. Euroskeptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus chose his moment well. Just hours before Poland became a signatory to the much-talked about European treaty, ...

Raped by Red Army soldiers, they talk for the first time

2009-04-10T21:10:35Z

The women were in their 20s when they were raped by Red Army soldiers invading Germany at the end of World War II. Sixty years later, close to two million women are talking about their ordeal for the very first time. "The Americans retreated from the East German town of Halle and the Russians marched in. ...

ERIKA STEINBACH AND GERMAN VICTIMS OF WWII

2009-03-09T21:09:14Z

'I Want the Truth, and Nothing But'. - Erika Steinbach is a hated figure in Poland. She has dedicated her career to documenting the suffering of Germans expelled from Eastern Europe following World War II. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke to her about the most recent flare up in Berlin-Warsaw relations and about what Poles must still learn about history.

Facing German Suffering, and Not Looking Away

2009-02-26T21:07:50Z

MALBORK, Poland � The damp mud falls away easily from the long thighbone jutting out of the dirt wall of the trench at the gentle prod of the shovel�s tip. Beyond the mass grave filled with the skeletal remains of some 2,000 people, presumed to be Germans who died in the closing months of World War II, stands the red-brick fortress of the Teutonic Knights that was once one of Germany�s greatest landmarks until it was forced to cede the territory to Poland after the war.

World War II Mass Grave Unearthed in Poland

2009-01-08T21:06:28Z

The Polish city of Malbork has found a mass grave with the remains of some 1,800 people, thought to be former German residents of the town. They apparently died as the Red Army marched through Poland -- and some of them appear to have been executed.

Hungarian Organisations to Petition EP for Slovakia's Compensation

2008-05-01T21:03:16Z

Brussels, April 19 (TASR-SLOVAKIA)- A group of Hungarian organisations are set to submit a petition next Tuesday to the members of the European Parliament condemning a resolution passed last year by Slovakia's parliament that upheld the inviolability of the WW2 Benes Decrees. A total of 147 organisations and associations have so far signed the petition posted on the website www.vilagmagyarsag.com saying that the Slovak Parliament's decision is incompatible with the concept of an united Europe in the 21st century and contravenes human rights.