German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/237, pp.
30915-30916.
Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
The Federal government’s comprehensive report for the
promotion of cultural work according to §96 contains light and shadow.
My delegation recognizes the comprehensive financial
promotion of museum establishments. The realization of the project “Flight,
Expulsion, Reconciliation”, as well as the completion of the Sudeten German
Museum in previous years, are two active entries in the submitted balance. Gut so! To be evaluated otherwise is
that one did not have the human decency to invite to the opening ceremony on Monday
Frau Steinbach, the initiator of the Center against Expulsions. As
vice-president, I myself then stood close at the side of Frau Steinbach.
The State museums will today be promoted as institutions. The
promotion is not luxurious. Just the same, places of remembrance have thereby
been created which shall recall the real eastern Germany. The former Prussian
eastern provinces are part of the German spiritual and cultural history. Whether
with the establishments a long-term remembrance of this part of our history
will be possible is doubtful. That can only succeed if the history instruction
in the schools arranges the corresponding teaching content. One unfortunately
cannot be optimistic.
The East Prussian State Museum is the property of the East
Prussians. We purchased the real estate with our own money. Why is the report
silent about that?
Marianne Schieder (SPD): Because it deals with promotion of culture!
The colleague Eckhard Pols, my esteemed previous speaker,
has for more than ten years actively supported the house. He had a decisive
part in that the East Prussian State Museum has with a Baltic branch experienced
an expansion and cultural enrichment. – Dear Eckhard, we are long time
companions. Thank you!
The report lists numerous establishments which will be
promoted according to §96. As it thereby comes to overlaps, means will be
distributed according to the watering can principle. The situation of the
German folk groups in Poland comes off badly in the report. Under my
leadership, the local associates founded 22 German associations in the Polish
part of East Prussia. The Interior Ministry gave subsidies for the local
establishments. That was a promotion of culture established locally. On the
whole is to be said: It was those Germans expelled from the Heimat, and their descendants, who with
life have fulfilled the Neighbors Treaty. I find nothing of that in the report.
Numerous Poles are disturbed that German tourists in today’s
Poland conduct themselves as more Polish than Polish patriots. That, national
conscious Poles do not allow. In my numerous visits to today’s Polish part of
East Prussia, I have made no secret of my Prussian and German sentiment.
Respect was therefore shown to me.
The East Prussian Association has on its initiative and at
its own cost founded local political discussion formats with Poland as well as
with Russia. For the Russian discussion format, there has been to this day not
one cent of promotion.
In 2005, I made contact with the great Russian writer, Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, a friend of Germany. We were agreed that both countries needed to
endure the worst kind of totalitarianism. Over 60 years after the war – on this,
we were also agreed – there was no more a place for self-accusation and
displays of guilt. My planned visit to him in Moscow was prevented by his
sudden calling away. His commitment to Germany [Einsatz für Deutschland] brought him ten years in the Gulag Archipelago.
It is also by his service and the grace of God that the reconciliation with Russia
has succeeded.
In the last days here, much has been spoken of disgraceful
German actions during the Second World War. Nothing of that should be
relativized. Yet so that the other side may be heard, I cite with the cordial
permission of the President some lines from Solzhenitsyn’s epic, „Ostpreussische
Nächte“:
22 Höringstrasse, though no fire, still a plundered waste. I find the mother, still living, were there many on the mattress? A daughter – still a child – the same as dead. All simply according to the word: Forget nothing, withdraw nothing. Who is a girl becomes a woman and soon a woman’s corpse. A clinic, a doctor, are not for you. Russia’s drivers scurry over grades and rises. Their wagons slant and slip. Rude, Asiatic customs, you are by us so well trusted. Forward further! Allenstein awaits us!
I am grateful. – Many thanks, Frau President.
Marianne
Schieder (SPD): Unbelievable! That is really unbelievable!
[trans: tem]
