Expelled Germans Get Recognition, No Cash

Tackling one of Germany’s most sensitive political topics, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder went Sunday before a group representing millions of ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe after World War II and told its members that he was sticking by his refusal to push their claims for compensation.

“The federal government will not encumber its relations with these countries with political and legal questions that come from the past,” Schroeder told the Federation of Expellees at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the signing of the group’s charter. “The former eastern territories belong to our cultural inheritance but not to our country.”

The group’s president, lawmaker Erika Steinbach, did not publicly express any disappointment over Schroeder’s expected announcement.

Rather, she emphasized that Schroeder was the first “chancellor of our fatherland” ever to address the group’s annual ceremony, and she said it was “good for Germany” that their chapter of history not be ignored as embarrassing or shameful.

Reprisals after Nazi Germany’s defeat saw about 12 million ethnic Germans dispossessed and driven from their homes in Eastern Europe. About 2 million were killed or died from starvation and illness on the trek west or in detention camps.

Schroeder praised the signatories of the charter for their rejection of violence and revenge and for distancing themselves from extremists and neo-Nazis who dream of retaking once-German lands in the east.

He also noted that work had begun at the German history museum in Bonn on an “important exhibition” documenting the subject of expulsions--one of the group’s minor demands.

However, he skirted calls to push for inclusion of a right to return for expellees in the charter of rights being drafted for the European Union, arguing that all citizens will have freedom of movement once eastern nations join the EU.