Say What, Herr Haider?Rick Jervis on angry Germans, Miloš Zeman’s big mouth and the latest master stroke from Austria’s master manipulator.
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How do you turn an anti-nuke rally into a full-fleged Historical brawl? Directions: take a debate over a nuclear power plant. On one side, put an anti-immigration, anti-EU Austrian nationalist. On the other, put a Czech politician with a penchant for saying the wrong thing at the right time. Add an election year. Stir. The above mix is now in the oven. Last month a petition drive against the Temelín nuclear power plant in Austria resparked debate over the Czech expulsion of millions of Sudeten Germans after World War II, and the nuclear issue was suddenly charged with a new energy. The petition did not materialize out of thin air, but was launched by Austria’s Freedom Party and boosted by its former leader, the ultra-right Joerg Haider. The petition quickly swelled with more than 900,000 signatures – 15% of the Alpine country’s 8 million citizens. What ensued was a public tit-for-tat, both between Czech Prime Minister Miloš Zeman and Mr. Haider, and between Mr. Haider and his own government. The debate – which temporarily threatened the Freedom Party’s coalition partner in government – was prompted by remarks Zeman made to the Austrian magazine Profil. In a January interview, the Czech prime minister said that Sudeten Germans were “traitors” and had constituted Hitler’s “fifth column.” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder then threatened to cancel a trip to Prague unless Mr. Zeman apologized, and Edmund Stoiber, the conservative candidate many expect to unseat Schroeder in the upcoming elections, shot off an angry letter to the Czech prime minister. The issue rapidly became an election issue in both Austria and Germany. The Beneš Decrees – which legalized the 1945 expulsion of nearly 3 million ethnic Germans from Bohemia – has been a sticking point between the two governments for decades. Czech officials, from President Vaclav Havel on down, have said the Sudeten Germans’ support of Hitler's dream of a “greater Germany” paved the way for Berlin to occupy Czechoslovakia in 1939, and thus they have no intention of abolishing the decrees. Sudeten German and their advocates disagree. They say many of the Germans who lost their homes were innocent victims who did not sympathize with the Nazis. They also claim some Sudeten Germans were tortured, murdered, herded into concentration camps originally created by the Nazis, or forced to work in uranium mines in the Bohemian town of Jachýmov. The historical hatchet looked buried back in 1997, when Germany and the Czech Republic first signed a declaration pledging to close the book on the subject. The case was reopened in January 2000 when the European Parliament asked that the decrees be re-examined, forcing some to wonder if the issue could hamper the Czech Republic’s EU aspirations. Zeman’s recent remarks have forcefully re-stoked the quarrel, though the issue is not expected to effect the Czech Republic’s chances of joining the EU. “We’re at the point of no return,” says Petr Ježek, deputy EU negotiator for the Czech. “There’s a neutral understanding between the two governments. [The Beneš Decrees] may be an issue and debate for some parts of society, but it has nothing to with the enlargement process.” But if Mr. Stoiber, currently governor of Bavaria, wins the chancellery in September it could bring added pressure on the Czechs to address the issue. Bavaria adjoins the former Sudeten lands and became home to many expellees after 1945. Inside the EU, the Sudeten Germans have European Parliament member Bernd Posselt on their side. Mr. Posselt is leader of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft (SDL), an umbrella organization representing the more than 800,000 living Sudeten Germans, for whom he is actively trying to win compensation. The European Parliament has twice asked the Czech Republic to address the Sudeten German issue, without making any specific demands. Critics, such as Mr. Posselt, say the decrees violate the Copenhagen criteria – the EU’s conditions for new members – which forbid any legislation contributing to discrimination or human-rights abuses. But Ramiro Cibrian, head of the EU delegation in Prague, has said he doesn't consider canceling the decrees a condition for expansion. Sudeten advocates say they would like to see only a dozen or so of the 143 decrees abolished – those that violated human rights the most – and compensation for only extreme cases of torture or forced labor, which they say amounts to around 1,000 people. “The enlargement of the EU will not be blocked because of this question, but it is also an illusion to think this question will not come up” says Mr. Posselt, adding that the issue should stay in Germany, not Austria. “The Sudetens are not very interested in discussions between Mr. Haider and Mr. Zeman,” he said. “[Temelín] has nothing to do with [the Beneš Decrees]. It will be very counterproductive to mix them.” Still, a beneficiary of the renewed German-Czech debate will likely be Mr. Haider, governor of Austria’s southwestern Carinthia province, who has used his country’s overwhelming opposition to Temelín to garner support for his Freedom Party. Not known for its attention to ecological issues, the Freedom Party is primarily anti-EU and anti-immigration. Nonetheless, Haider has benefited from opposition to the Czech power plant that sits 35 miles from the Austrian border. The Austrians also have their own bad blood with the Czechs, blood running as deep as the time when the Czech lands were ruled from Vienna under the Hapsburg Empire. Some political analysts say Mr. Haider has deftly unearthed this resentment to his advantage. “He really is capable of raising old sentiments that a majority of Austrians think our Slavic neighbors are a kind of underdog,” said Otmar Hoell, director of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. “He had to use the more popular anti-nuclear issue to get the Sudeten Germans on the table. It’s never been a real Austrian issue. Until now.” Rick Jervis is a journalist living in Prague. He contributes regularly to The Wall Street Journal Europe. |
Article added on Thu 21st Feb, 2002 [last updated Thu 6th Oct, 2005]Share this page 
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