Linz, Austria, Aug 21 (CTK special correspondent) – A crushing majority of Sudeten Germans and their descendants living in Upper Austria are interested in compensation for the property they lost when transferred from former Czechoslovakia after World War Two, their chief Peter Ludwig said Friday.
He raised the claim during a press conference that Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek and his Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz gave Friday.
Zaoralek said this is no theme for him.
Ludwig, chairman of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft in Upper Austria, who says the association has some 3000 members, told Zaoralek that he found this stance based on a poll among the membership.
He later told CTK that 95 percent of the participants in correspondence voting gave this reply.
That is why Ludwig asked Zaoralek to convey this stance in Prague.
He told CTK that he does not support the idea of returning specific property to the Sudeten Germans now but that they or their descendants should be compensated for it.
Ludwig said he would support the establishment of a fund from which joint Czech-Austrian projects would be financed.
“For me, this is not a theme because I think that we do not have any need to solve with the Austrians what we have resolved in case of Czech-German relations in the Czech-German Declaration (of 1997),” Zaoralek said.
