Total revision
BERLIN (Own report) In a public speech the German head of state has attacked the victorious powers of the Second World War and accused them of ,,dreadful wrong". The supposed wrong was inflicted on those ,,Germans"who were ,,expelled"from central and eastern Europe. The accusations are directed against fundamental parts of the Potsdam Treaty. To this day, the validity of the borders between Germany and it neighbours rest on these agreements.
The German Federal President, Johannes Rau (Social Democrat Party) accuses Great Britain and France because they ,,shook hands with Hitler on the Munich agreement". Furthermore the USA and USSR had charges to answer. As ,,participants in the conferences of Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam"they could not plead innocence to the consequences of a policy ,,which deprived German people of rights". He was speaking of supposed Germans who were, in reality, citizens of non-German states and were implicated in the Nazi occupation of their homelands.
The guilt...
This attack by the German head of state is also directed against those persecuted by the Nazis, who were forced to flee Germany. Because, in exile, they reflected how the provocations of German ,,Minority Policy"might be ended 1), Rau characterised these as ,,those who, already in exile for years, planned the expulsion"(of German minorities). According to Rau, the expelled minorities deserve the ,,status of suffering"accorded to persecuted Jews. 2)
... of others...
The high point of this speech by the highest representative of the German state is a relativised comparison in which the crimes of Hitler's Germany are placed on the same level with the ,,wrong"perpetrated by the anti-Hitler coalition. Word for word, it goes ,,Hitler's criminal policy does not excuse anyone who responded to dreadful wrong with dreadful wrong".
... makes you free
Raus's arguments have adopted the basic principle of political discourse which was developed after the war in the milieu of German revisionism and the extreme right. Its main element is the blurring of historical causes and the resulting consequences which affected the aggressor. These effects are described as morally abhorrent and therefore solved outside the context of their political origin. The purpose is the waste disposal of German crimes of power policy, which requires a thoroughly sanitised past for its present, actual plans.
In spite of the significance of the attack on parts of international law, the actions of the German head of state have provoked no controversial echoes in the German public and media.
1) See also Policy regarding German nationality (Volkstumspolitik)
2) Rede von Bundespraesident Johannes Rau beim Tag der Heimat des Bundes der Vertriebenen; www.bundespraesident.de