Last year, Sudeten German leader Bernd Posselt presented his association’s human rights award to Meeting Brno, which organises marches aimed at fostering reconciliation with ethnic Germans forced out of Czechoslovakia after the war.
Meeting Brno later invited the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft to hold a congress in the Moravian capital – its first ever gathering in Czechia – and it is due to begin in two weeks’ time.
Tomio Okamura|Photo: Zuzana Jarolímková, iROZHLAS.cz
This has sparked anger among some Czech politicians, including lower house speaker Tomio Okamura of Freedom and Direct Democracy.
On Wednesday Prime Minister Andrej Babiš entered the fray, with the ANO leader saying many people in Czechia regarded the planned congress as a “provocation” – and that it could even spark conflict.
“We have discussed it with the German ambassador. Our strong hope is that this doesn’t put a strain on our relations with Germany. We look to the future, and for us Germany is, strategically, our strongest economic partner.”
Andrej Babiš|Photo: archive of Czech Government
Previously Mr. Babiš refused to address the issue at all. Three months ago he said after a meeting with the premier of Bavaria, where many Sudeten Germans settled, that it was not a matter for the Czech government.
More forthright have been former Czech presidents Václav Klaus and Miloš Zeman, who are among those incensed by the planned gathering. The latter called Sudeten Germans “Hitler’s fifth column” and said it would be an insult to victims of Nazism – if Czechs were to allow it.
Such outlooks are shared by some members of Mr. Babiš’s coalition government, which this week tabled a lower house motion expressing the chamber’s opposition to the gathering.
In the end, a vote was not held on the matter. Nevertheless, MP Lukáš Vlček of the Mayors party summed up an opposition view.
Lukáš Vlček|Photo: Zuzana Jarolímková, iROZHLAS.cz
“The governing majority came out with a nonsensical motion. In doing so, they blocked all debate relating to important matters, such as housing, the social sector and the building permit system. In my view, this is nothing but a fig leaf for the problems of the coalition government. In the Czech Republic, if you have lots of problems and scandals, you can cover them up with the Beneš decrees.”
Decrees issued by President Edvard Beneš were the mechanism under which millions of ethnic Germans – most of them Sudeten Germans – were expelled from Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1947.
Eighty years later the expulsions are clearly still an issue that can inflame a certain section of the Czech political spectrum.
But the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft will not be swayed by this hostility. In a statement on Wednesday, leader Bernd Posselt promised that its first-ever congress on Czech soil will go ahead.