MINELRES: BBC: Poland rejects return of Germans

[MINELRES moderator]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_2063000/2063265.stm

Monday, 24 June, 2002, 16:29 GMT 17:29 UK 
Poland rejects return of Germans
 

Poland has rejected a call from the conservative challenger in
Germany's forthcoming election for Germans expelled from the country
after World War II to be allowed back. 

"I believe these questions are permanently closed," said Prime
Minister Leszek Miller. 
 
"The Polish Government does not intend to return to them." 

Poland expelled millions of Germans from the swathes of German
territory it received after the Potsdam conference of the Allied
Powers in 1945. 

Their property was taken over by the Polish state. 

On Sunday, Bavarian leader Edmund Stoiber, who is challenging Gerhard
Schroeder for the chancellorship in September's election, called on
Poland to annul the decrees that led to the expulsion. 


Noble gesture 

"So long as [the decrees] remain valid, wounds remain open," he told
an 8,000-strong gathering in Leipzig. 

"It is in Poland's own interests to part in a binding and conciliatory
way with this part of the past." 

The Bavarian leader added that it would be a "noble gesture" to allow
the Germans to return. 

Mr Stoiber has already won support among Sudeten Germans, many of whom
settled in Bavaria after being expelled from what was then
Czechoslovakia when the war ended. 

He is now widely seen to be moving towards picking up support from the
descendents of those Germans ejected from Poland. 

Mr Stoiber has made clear that he would like the issue of expulsions
linked to entry into the European Union for those east European
countries which carried them out. 


Compensation fears 

He has in particular championed the cause of the Sudeten Germans, who
were kicked out on the order of the then Czechoslovak president,
Edvard Benes. 

Some 2.5 million Germans were expropriated and expelled under the act,
accused of collaborating with the Nazi regime. 

The Czech Government has refused outright to repeal the decrees,
insisting they are not only part of the country's history but also
constitute an important part of its current legal foundation. 

It is feared that the annulment of the decrees could also lead to a
flood of court cases by people trying to get their property back or
wanting compensation. 

Warsaw has watched the row closely, fearing it too could face
restitution claims. 

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has also criticised the Czech
Republic over the Benes decrees, although he has appeared reluctant to
link it to gaining membership of the EU or to transform it into an
election issue. 

Mr Schroeder's ruling Social Democrat Party have been trailing behind
the conservatives, an alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and
Mr Stoiber's own Christian Social Union, in the opinion polls for
months.