80 years ago, millions of German -speaking people – including numerous old Austrians from the former crown countries of the Habsburg monarchy – were driven out of their homeland. Parliament today took the commemorative year as an opportunity for a lecture event, at the center of which the fate of those who were uprooted after the Second World War and found a new home in Austria. It was not only reminded of personal losses and deprivations, but also the important role that the displaced people played in building the second republic.
National Council President Walter Rosenkranz, opened the event and emphasized the responsibility that Austria and the parliament have to protect the expelled inheritance. Florian Kührer-Wielach, director of the Institute for German Culture and History of Southeast Europe at the LMU Munich, offered a scientific-historical overview in his lecture “80 years of flight and expulsion-European and Austrian perspectives”. He analyzed the historical contexts and advocated a differentiated processing without falling into the “collectivism trap”. The former German member of the Bundestag and chairman of the foundation council of the foundation, Hartmut Koschyk, explained in his contribution to dealing with displaced persons in East and West Germany. Final words came from Rüdiger Stix, federal chairman of the Sudeten German compatriot in Austria. The event led Norbert Kapeller, President of the Association of the German old Austrian compatriots in Austria (VLÖ).
Rosary: displaced persons made an invaluable contribution to the second republic
National Council President Walter Rosenkranz recalled the displacement, violence and dehumanization, which, for example, had taken place in the heart of the “Brünner death march” in the heart of Europe. The memory of this should also be understood as an order and the parliament offers itself as a “symbolic place”. In the Federal Council Hall, not only the coat of arms of the nine federal states, but also those of the former Kronländer, who remembered responsibility that goes beyond the national borders. Anyone who calls the displacement as a break in international law do not run a split, but serve the truth, according to Rosenkranz – and this is the basis for reconciliation and a view of the future. There is no fair displacement, no legitimate collective debt and no exclusion that would be compatible with freedom.
He described as “particularly depressing” that the fate of the displaced persons, who had made an “invaluable contribution to the second republic”, had hardly become the subject of research. Parliament perceives its responsibility and, for example, will begin the scientific processing of the fate and the work of the displaced people, for example, according to the permanent visualization in the library.
Kührer-Wielach advocates a differentiated processing without “victim competition”
Florian Kührer-Wielach provided a demolition of the recent history of the persecution of minorities in Central Europe, which had already started the “delusional idea of ethnonational homogeneity” before the First World War. In the interwar period, the pressure on minorities had risen steadily and finally culminated in the systematic “revolving” as a result of the Hitler-Stalin package. The extensive relocations of Volksdeutsche “Home into the Reich” have by no means always voluntarily accomplished. After 1945, the “cruel logic of collectivism” finally struck the displacement and the deportation of German-speakers, as Kührer-Wielach explained. The so -called “wild displacement” was “the most violent unloading of the retaliation” under the eyes of the Soviets. Just as National Socialism has all summarized to the ethnalic group, they were now also punished. This affected Czechoslovakia, for example, but also Yugoslavia, where Titos Partisans had collectively declared “folk enemies”.
Finally, the “tough struggle for integration” started with the escape to Austria, explained Kührer-Wielach, with it initially only “bare survival”. In a social “mixture of political unwilling and strategic displacement”, the displaced in Austria also had a lot of hatred. Only from the 1950s did a gradual equality process be started. The processing of the fate of the displaced people had long been driven by the political wish to draw a “final line”, as Kührer-Wielach illustrated using parliamentary speeches. However, he advocated a differentiated processing of the “epochal culture” of the displacement, supported by empathy, self-reflection and without falling into the “collectivism trap”. This is the task of the following generations, says Kührer-Wielach. However, there is no space for “victim competition” and “playing out the disasters”.
Koschyk: Determination of location Germany
Hartmut Koschyk explained the history of dealing with Germany with the displaced people. Her fate was often hidden there too. This applies especially to the Soviet occupation zone and later GDR, where, instead of displaced persons, “relocalists” have been spoken in order not to remind the “socialist brother states of their misdeeds”. There had been “clear assimilation compulsion” and hardly any social or economic measures were taken in the sense of the displaced persons.
The situation in the Federal Republic of Germany has presented itself differently, explained Koschyk. Compared to Austria, even due to the high number of displaced persons, politics had to maintain a different way of dealing. The 9 million displaced persons up to 1050 had 4.5 million emigrants until the 2000s. In addition to political measures such as the Federal Displeasant Act and the Load Exhibition Act, the displaced persons as part of a rich association system, above all, caused their integration themselves, as Koschyk carried out. A turning point finally presented reunification, in the context of which overall Germany had committed to maintaining the entire German cultural heritage. The displaced people in the former GDR had now also received the load compensation as “moral gesture”, which had previously only been paid out in West Germany. After all, there is also a “clear commitment” in the current German coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and SPD to preserve the inheritance of the displaced, according to Koschyk (conclusion) Wit.
A NOTICE: Photos From this event as well as a Reference to past events Find im Parliament web portal.