Nuremberg, Germany, May 15 (CTK) – It was high time for a Czech minister to visit an annual meeting of Sudeten Germans, Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman, who addressed the 67th Sudeten German meeting on Sunday as the first Czech minister, told Czech journalists.
He said the process of reconciliation between Czechs and Sudeten Germans was thwarted by the communists in the past.
“I am convinced that it was really high time,” Herman (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) said about his participation in the Nuremberg event organised by the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft (SL).
“Compared with the French-German dialogue and reconciliation, we can see a 40-year delay [on the Czech part] caused by the communist regime. If it had not been for the communists, who thwarted the process…, it [reconciliation] would have been achieved earlier. But it is good that it happened today,” Herman said.
The Czech opposition Communists (KSCM) sharply criticised Herman’s participation in the Sudeten German meeting at its congress on Saturday, when KSCM chairman Vojtech Filip called on Herman to resign.
In reaction to him, Herman said on Sunday it is good that the Communists remain isolated on the Czech political scene.
He appreciated the fact that his visit to the Sudeten German meeting was backed by all three Czech government parties and some opposition ones.
“This is very important because the issues in question stand above parties,” he said.
By seeking reconciliation with Sudeten Germans, Czech politicians adhere to the legacy of Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor who focused on western Europe and whose 700th birth anniversary was marked on Saturday.
“We are Europeans, we have west European, central European identity. This is the space we belong to,” Herman said.
In a speech he gave in German at the Nuremberg meeting this morning, he addressed the Sudeten Germans “dear compatriots,” which met with ovations of the 3,000-strong audience.
In the speech, Herman reminded of the Nazi crimes as well as the violence the Czechs committed during the post-war transfer of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia, mainly its border regions (Sudetenland). He expressed regret at the past events.
Herman said the identity of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia had been formed, apart from Czechs, by Germans, Jews, Romanies and Poles who lived in the above Czech Lands.
The 20th-century tragic events impaired and cut these ties, and definitively destroyed some, he continued, mentioning the Nazi programme of the elimination of Jews and Romanies.
The desire for revenge and retaliation for the war crimes took the horrible shape of the crimes that a part of the Czech population committed towards their German-speaking fellow citizens at the close of the war, Herman said in the speech.
He rejected the application of the collective guilt principle on all ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia and apologised for “what some of our ancestors did seven decades ago.”
SL leader Bernd Posselt called Herman’s speech historic.
Minister Herman’s presence at the SL meeting means that the Czech government has rejected the principle of collective guilt as applied during the transfer of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War Two, Posselt said.
Herman’s presence was also hailed by Bavarian Minister-President Horst Seehofer. He said it was high time for a member of the Czech government to visit the annual meeting.
Herman’s visit shows that the two sides are prepared to speak with each other, Seehofer said.
