Wilhelm von Gottberg, June 25, 2021, Expelled Persons

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]

 

Wilhelm von Gottberg, February 24, 2021, Housing Market

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/211, pp. 26609-26610.

First, a critical word on the formulation for this current affairs hour: “Housing Market as Political Plaything” is besides the point. What the FDP means will be expressed in the second part of theme: “The Federal Government’s Support for Freedom and Property in the Housing Market”.

Politics must concern itself with the people. Whose basic requirements are no plaything. Private property promotes individual responsibility and guarantees a gradual independence of people. Property promotes people’s self-consciousness. All of our educational efforts for children and youth have the goal of bringing up self-reliant, self-conscious citizens.

Ladies and gentlemen, this educational goal can only be successful if independent thought [das Mitdenken] obtains the necessary material dimension. Therefore, freedom and property in the housing market must be a central concern for every Federal government.

The introduction of rent caps here in Berlin was blessed by a coalition led by the SPD – by the SPD which also co-governs in the Federal government. We must also register a further intensification of the rent brake and its prolongation until 2025, as a well as recognize a questionable reform of the housing property law which further curtails rights of individual owners. To this negative catalogue also belongs the reduction of the renovation assessment [Sanierungsumlage] to 8 percent or less. And the coming regulation of the construction code amendment allows to imagine nothing good in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is to conceded: The just now specified negative catalogue shall make possible for a few high earners, of the greater number of people, dwelling rents of good value. Ladies and gentlemen of the left side of the house, you thereby neglect to observe the political fundamental of “measure and mean”.

If a small landlord in Berlin was today asked how his freedom and property rights were arranged, he would give a quite sobering answer. The past legislation has let both shrivel to a deplorable remainder. Frau Bayram of the Greens has clearly positioned herself in this question – I cite: “If we now cap the rents, expropriation will later be easier”. This perspective suits the recent foray of colleague Hofreiter, that the construction of new, single-family houses is to be forbidden.

A considerable portion of the colleagues on the left side of the plenum forget that certainly many of the small landlords purchase their housing units with money earned from work, and for that have for years foregone consumption. For these landlords it is thus in no way unproductive income, as is always asserted, but labor and skill have been provided which were invested in these dwellings. The Federal government is also obligated to protect these people.

Politics has to promote the general good. The peace of mind and sense of self-worth of a growing people decisively depend on four factors: On a dwelling which corresponds to their requirements, a harmonious partnership, a fulfilling occupation, and in the acknowledgment of their personal individuality.

Residence is of the highest priority and is a basic right…All circles of the population in their own ways strive for this. That ranges from freehold property to rental unit. The overcoming of the crisis in the housing market can only and alone be achieved by means of expansion of the housing supply.

For that, nevertheless, all who have the means, regardless whether home dweller or investor, require reliable parameters. They require the assurance that today’s rules also still matter for tomorrow. Only then do freedom and property become the driving powers which create prosperity. To write this in the album of all delegations, and especially those of the government coalition, must be the goal of this current affairs hour.

Thanks.

 

[trans: tem]  

  

 

 

 

Wilhelm von Gottberg, January 27, 2021, Agricultural Market Law

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/205, p. 25833. 

The draft law debated here concerns the agricultural market structure law of 1969. Originally, the law contained 14 provisions. Presently, there are still 11 comprehensive provisions of an extent thoroughly friendly to business and citizens. 

Due to EU standards, Germany must now implement into national law by May 1 the UTP guidelines referring to unfair trade practices. The aim of the guidelines is to reduce the financial pressure on farmers and other food producers by means of a stronger regulation of unfair trade practices.The member states can without replacement delete or retain national provisions on unfair trade practices which exceed these guidelines. 

The ban on unfair trade practices – itemized in the so-called blacklist of the UTP guidelines – changes nothing in the structural commercial imbalance and the weak negotiating position of agriculture vis-à-vis the food industry and trade. Quite the contrary: The price pressure on German farmers will probably still increase. Since the trade, for which arise greater risks, will compensate by means of still more severe price requirements. The food industry firms will need to engage in this and pass on the price pressure to the end of the chain; namely, to the farmers. 

If one wants to strengthen the market position of agricultural operations, the supply must be more strongly bundled to the supply side. This enjoins that agricultural operations must strongly unite themselves with producer organizations. Since only so are they exempted from §1 of the cartel law and are allowed to reach price agreements and price fixing [preisbindungen]. Only so do the agricultural operations have a real chance to negotiate eye to eye. 

That alone however will not suffice. For years, German agriculture struggles with continually increasing production costs. It is primarily the fault of ever new administrative impositions. It is plainly and palpably unfair that German farmers must fulfill the highest standards, yet at the same time massive amounts of cheap food can be imported from foreign countries which need not fulfill these standards. 

The UTP guidelines foresee that in every member state will be installed an enforcement authority with investigative and sanction competences including money fines. It is to be hoped that this point will be realized by the Federal Institute for Agriculture and Food and that the UTP guidelines for the fruit and vegetable sector and in the dairy, meat and crop sector will be transferred; since only so is possible a sustainable balance of farming with the retail food trade.   

We welcome that a hearing will be given to the draft law on February 22. This will facilitate the discussion of drafts in the Agriculture Committee and on the whole provide more clarity.

 

[trans: tem]