German claims against Poland
NÜRNBERG The Silesian Association ( ,,Landsmannschaft der Schlesier") is making further claims against Poland and seeks to achieve them by way of litigation. Thus declared the Chairman of the German ,,Expellees Association"at a meeting in Germany on the weekend of 12/13 July. Friedrich Merz, deputy Chairman of the largest opposition group in the German Parliament (CDU/CSU) pointed out that EU law had established the preconditions for legal action against Warsaw.
The continuation of ,,Expulsion decrees and removal of rights"(as Merz expressed it) was not reconcilable with the 1993 ,,Copenhagen Criteria"of the European Council in which the EU member states had committed themselves to the ,,Protection of Minorities"without suspecting that German claims for restitution would be thereby promoted. Corresponding ,,Criteria"had been launched by leading German foreign policy organisations and German politicians in Brussels.
Legal steps
The Silesian Association's Chairman Rudi Pawelka announced that his organisation would first take legal steps against the alleged ,,continuing discrimination against the German population in Poland". They would thereby support ,,litigation in the Polish courts, the European Court of Human Rights and finally class actions in the USA".
,,German property"
The Polish Government (according to Pawelka) must finally apologise to the Germans and reverse the expropriations after the Second World War. Each expellee should be able to ,,decide freely"how he deals ,,with his own property". The claim of property rights covers several thousand square kilometres of Polish territory and is valued at billions of Euros - a sum which the desperate Polish finances could hardly cover.
The plan to push through claims by litigation against other countries which followed the expulsions of Germans as approved by the anti-Hitler allies has been prepared by those whom the German press has characterised as ,,the far right". Among them is the Wuerzburg based lawyer Dieter Blumenwitz 1)who has written widely on the ,,Rights of Minorities and Ethnic Groups". Blumenwitz declared, in an opinion for the Association of Sudeten Germans, that the Benes Decrees contradicted the ,,Copenhagen Criteria".
On the road to Silesia
If ten years ago the circle around Blumenwitz was regarded as a small minority then today his preparatory work determines official German policy on ,,Refugees"and are valued by influential circles in the German Foreign Office as ,,preparing the way"for future policy.
1) See also earlier article Sudeten Germans open ,,Embassy"
See also earlier articles Polish parties raise issue of German land claimsand Stoiber turns on Poland
Sources:
Schlesier fordern Ende der Dekrete; Frankfurter Rundschau 14.07.2003
,,Heilung des Unrechts"; Süddeutsche Zeitung 14.07.2003