German gov’t resolves dispute rooted in World War II that became headache for Merkel

Government resolves dispute over expelled Germans

BERLIN — Germany’s ruling coalition on Thursday resolved a dispute rooted in World War II history that had caused friction in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new government and threatened to complicate relations with neighboring Poland.

The flap over a planned center commemorating the fate of Germans expelled from eastern Europe after World War II has been a headache for Merkel since she formed a new center-right government in October.

It centered on a lawmaker with Merkel’s conservative party, Erika Steinbach, who heads a group representing the expelled Germans and is deeply distrusted in Poland.

Merkel’s new foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, made clear that he didn’t want Steinbach to join the board of the government-backed “Center against Expulsions.” That infuriated many conservatives, feeding friction in a coalition already squabbling over planned tax cuts.

Merkel’s coalition reached a compromise Thursday that keeps Steinbach off the board but increases her group’s representation. It allows parliament, rather than the government, to name members in future — but keeps the center under the auspices of the government-owned German Historical Museum.

Westerwelle said the deal “takes heed of foreign policy concerns.”

After the Third Reich collapsed in 1945 and borders were moved westward, millions of ethnic Germans in Poland, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere were viewed as traitors and were expelled or fled.

Steinbach has raised hackles in Poland in part because she voted against officially recognizing Germany’s postwar eastern border after reunification. She pushed hard for the expellees’ fate to be commemorated.

That led to accusations in Poland, which was subjected to a brutal occupation and lost millions of its own citizens after Nazi Germany invaded in 1939, that she sought to rewrite history by stressing the suffering of the Germans.

Poland long opposed plans to set up the center, but gave in after being assured that it would also include information on expulsions of other peoples throughout history and around the globe.