Erika Steinbach
Encyclopedia
is a German
conservative politician
and president of the Federation of Expellees
. She has been representing the Christian Democratic Union
(CDU) and the state of Hesse
as a member of the Parliament
of Germany, the Bundestag
, since 1990. She is one of two MPs representing the constituency of Frankfurt
, and is the spokeswoman of the CDU/CSU
parliamentary group on human rights
and humanitarian aid
. On 9 September 2010 she announced she would not stand again for election to the national board of the CDU
, after defending two fellow expellee functionaries, who made controversial remarks on the origin of World War II. Erika Steinbach studied music and was a member of concert orchestras before becoming a politician.
(Hesse
, western-central Germany
) but his family had come from Lower Silesia
. In 1941 he was stationed within Nazi occupied Poland
in the town of Rumia
,. Wilhelm Karl Hermann served there as an airfield technician with the rank of a Luftwaffe
Feldwebel
. Steinbach's mother, Erika Hermann (née Grote), was ordered to work in the town after the annexation. Steinbach was born there as Erika Hermann.
In January 1944, her father was deployed to the Eastern Front. In January 1945 during East Prussian Offensive
of the Soviet Army
, Steinbach's mother together with her children, fled to Schleswig-Holstein
in northwestern Germany. In 1948 the family moved to Berlin
, where Steinbach's grandfather had become mayor of one of the districts.
In 1949, Wilhelm Karl Hermann returned from Soviet captivity. In 1950, the family moved to Hanau, Hesse where Steinbach finished her education and started studying the violin. In 1967 she abandoned her music career due to an ill finger. In 1972, she married Helmut Steinbach, the conductor of a local youth symphonic orchestra. Steinbach graduated from a school of civil administration and moved to Frankfurt, where she started working for a Communal Evaluation Office.
. In 1977 she was elected a member of the Frankfurt City Council and held that post until 1990.
She was elected a member of the Bundestag
in 1990, one of two representatives of the constituency of Frankfurt
In 1990 she voted against the German–Polish Border Treaty (1990). In 1997 she criticised the approval of the Czech-German Declaration of Reconciliation.
Since 2005, she has been a member of the German parliamentary committee for human rights and humanitarian aid and spokesperson for human rights
and humanitarian aid of the CDU/Christian Social Union
fraction. She is also a deputy member of the parliamentary Committee for the Interior. Since 2000, she has been a member of the national board of the CDU
(German, CDU-Bundesvorstand).
In 2009, she was offered the position of Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, but declined.
in 1994. In May 1998 she was elected President of the organization, and was re-elected in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. The Federation of Expellees has approximately 2 million members. This figure was disputed in January 2010 by the German news service DDP, which reported an actual membership of 550,000.
The German Federal Expellee Law
of 1953 defines as expellee all German nationals and ethnic Germans with a primary residence outside post-war Germany
, who lost this residence in the course of the World War II-related flight and expulsions
.
Steinbach has distanced herself from the Prussian Trust, that aggressively seeks restitution of German properties in Poland.
Steinbach represents the FoE on the board of the national broadcasting company ZDF
.http://www.unternehmen.zdf.de/index.php?id=306
, of the foundation Centre Against Expulsions
, which is working to establish a museum for the victims of "Flight, displacements, forced resettlements and deportations all over the world in the past century", a project of the German federal government on initiative and with participation of the Federation of Expellees
. The museum will contain a permanent exhibition to document expulsions including the expulsion of Germans after World War II
.
The federal government established the federal foundation "Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung" which is intended to be the basis of a future museum. The Federal of Expellees is entitled to appoint some of the board member, although they need to be confirmed by the cabinet.
On 4 March 2009 the Federation of Expellees decided not to nominate Steinbach to the council and instead left one seat unoccupied, after the social democratic
party (SPD
) threatened to veto Steinbach's appointment to the board. On October 19, 2009, after the SPD was ousted from government and replaced by a liberal-conservative coalition dominated by Steinbach's party, Steinbach announced her intention to take the seat at the board. However, objections against her were subsequently also raised by the new foreign minister Guido Westerwelle
of the liberal FDP party. However, Steinbach is supported by her own party and the CSU party, both of which have called upon Westerwelle to give up his resistance, and have cited earlier statements by Westerwelle where he had praised Steinbach a few years ago.
In 2006 she was involved in an exhibition on the expulsions in Europe in the 20th century. The exhibition deals with expulsions of German, Armenians, Poles, Turks, Greeks, Latvians, Karelians, Ukrainians, Italians and other peoples - topics many Europeans are unfamiliar with. The last item of the exhibition was a reconciliatory suitcase from Poland dedicated to a peaceful Polish, German and Ukrainian future generation .
spokeswoman for human rights, Erika Steinbach is involved in a number of activities promoting human rights worldwide.
She was an expert speaker at the International Cuba Conference of the International Society for Human Rights
in 2006.
, she was the primary initiator of the Franz Werfel Human Rights Award
, and serves as a jury member together with Otto von Habsburg
, Klaus Hänsch
and Otto Graf Lambsdorff
among others. It has been awarded every second year since 2003 in the Frankfurt Paulskirche. The 2009 recipient was Herta Müller
.
from 1994 to 2002. She is also member of the Verein Deutsche Sprache.http://www.vds-ev.de/bekanntemitglieder
Steinbach endorses the Charta of the German expellees of August 1950.
and same-sex marriage
, which sometimes has caused controversy.
and the Czech Republic
than in Germany
. According to Cordell and Wolff (2005), the political importance the Federation of Expellees
has in German politics is overestimated in Poland and the Czech Republic because of its unproportional media presence in these countries and campaigns of "aggressively nationalist politicians".
are sometimes associated with Nazism. One example of this was a 2003 cover montage of Polish newsmagazine Wprost
that depicted her riding Chancellor Gerhard Schröder
while wearing an SS uniform. In 2007 Gazeta Wyborcza
, a popular newspaper in Poland, reproduced a leaflet presenting Steinbach in the succession of the Teutonic Knights
and the Nazis, and reminded of the full compensations never paid to Poland for losses caused by the Nazi Germany.
Polish ambassador to Germany, Marek Prawda, Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk
expressed unease with Steinbach's appointment to the board of the Center against Expulsions in February 2009.
Władysław Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor who is Poland’s commissioner on relations with Germany, said that giving Mrs Steinbach a seat on the board would be akin to the Vatican appointing a Holocaust denier like Richard Williamson to manage relations with Israel. On 16 September 2010, Steinbach attested Bartoszewski "a bad character" on German TV.http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,717858,00.html
The Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, privately warned Berlin that allowing Mrs Steinbach’s appointment would shake German-Polish relations “to their foundations”.
Do people whose families lived there for generations want to be identified with a person like Mrs. Steinbach, who came to our country with Hitler and had to leave it with Hitler too ? Sikorski said in Brussels on Feb. 23 2009, referring to Steinbach’s father having moved to German occupied Poland during the war and asked her to follow the example of President Horst Köhler, who was born within family of wartime German settlers in Poland and never considered himself an expellee. The fact that Steinbach represents a person born to German officer stationed in occupied Poland has been described as one of essential issues for Poles.
In Germany the Polish criticism is considered to be part of an anti-German campaign in which Steinbach became the enemy stereotype and demonization of Steinbach a kind of reason of state. The way she is portrayed in Polish public had rather "hysteric features" or is described as a "psychosis".
Especially conservative nationalists in the PiS
are blamed to have used her as a bogey in internal politics to counter Donald Tusk
ignoring Steinbach's real views.
In 2011 Steinbach visited Poland for the third time, where she laid a floral wreath at the commemoral site of the victims of Nazism in Piasnica
, and visited a church of Gdynia, where German expellee victims are commemorated.
s about the "German settlement in Eastern Central Europe
" at the University of Potsdam
. However demonstrations by far-left students who protested against Steinbach's allegedly revisionist view on German history by throwing waterfilled balloons and blocking the entrances compelled her to cancel the further lectures. On June 11, 2008, a full meeting of the students council decided (with 146 against 7 votes) to protect the right of freedom of opinion and speech and invited Steinbach again, if necessary under police protection. The local Mayor, supported by several political parties, expressed his displeasure about the incident and requested that the university council invite Steinbach again.
by Prime Minister of Bavaria Horst Seehofer
for her work for the rights of the victims of the Expulsion.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
conservative politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and president of the Federation of Expellees
Federation of Expellees
The Federation of Expellees or Bund der Vertriebenen is a non-profit organization formed to represent the interests of Germans who either fled their homes in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, or were expelled following World War II....
. She has been representing the Christian Democratic Union
Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...
(CDU) and the state of Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
as a member of the Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
of Germany, the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
, since 1990. She is one of two MPs representing the constituency of Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, and is the spokeswoman of the CDU/CSU
CDU/CSU
CDU/CSU, unofficially also referred to as the Union parties or the Union, is the name of the Bundestag parliamentary faction comprising the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria , considered to be sister parties...
parliamentary group on human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
. On 9 September 2010 she announced she would not stand again for election to the national board of the CDU
National board of the CDU
The National board of the CDU is the highest permanent body of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. The board meets at least 6 times a year...
, after defending two fellow expellee functionaries, who made controversial remarks on the origin of World War II. Erika Steinbach studied music and was a member of concert orchestras before becoming a politician.
Early life
Steinbach's father, Wilhelm Karl Hermann, was born in HanauHanau
Hanau is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main. Its station is a major railway junction.- Geography :...
(Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
, western-central Germany
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
) but his family had come from Lower Silesia
Province of Lower Silesia
The Province of Lower Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. Between 1938 and 1941 it was reunited with Upper Silesia as the Silesia Province. The capital of Lower Silesia was Breslau...
. In 1941 he was stationed within Nazi occupied Poland
Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
At the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter of the pre-war Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany and placed directly under German civil administration, while the rest of Nazi occupied Poland was named as General Government...
in the town of Rumia
Rumia
Rumia is a city in the Eastern Pomerania region of north-western Poland, with some 45,000 inhabitants. It is a part of the Kashubian Tricity and a suburb part of the metropolitan area of the Tricity...
,. Wilhelm Karl Hermann served there as an airfield technician with the rank of a Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
Feldwebel
Feldwebel
Feldwebel is a German military rank which has existed since at least the 18th century with usage as a title dating to the Middle Ages. The word Feldwebel is usually translated as sergeant being rated OR-6 in the NATO rank comparison scale, equivalent to the British Army Sergeant and the US Army...
. Steinbach's mother, Erika Hermann (née Grote), was ordered to work in the town after the annexation. Steinbach was born there as Erika Hermann.
In January 1944, her father was deployed to the Eastern Front. In January 1945 during East Prussian Offensive
East Prussian Offensive
The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front . It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May...
of the Soviet Army
Soviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
, Steinbach's mother together with her children, fled to Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
in northwestern Germany. In 1948 the family moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, where Steinbach's grandfather had become mayor of one of the districts.
In 1949, Wilhelm Karl Hermann returned from Soviet captivity. In 1950, the family moved to Hanau, Hesse where Steinbach finished her education and started studying the violin. In 1967 she abandoned her music career due to an ill finger. In 1972, she married Helmut Steinbach, the conductor of a local youth symphonic orchestra. Steinbach graduated from a school of civil administration and moved to Frankfurt, where she started working for a Communal Evaluation Office.
Career in the CDU, Member of Parliament
In 1974 she joined the Frankfurt branch of the CDU partyChristian Democratic Party
Christian democratic parties are those political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social teaching, and it continues to be influential in Europe and...
. In 1977 she was elected a member of the Frankfurt City Council and held that post until 1990.
She was elected a member of the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
in 1990, one of two representatives of the constituency of Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
In 1990 she voted against the German–Polish Border Treaty (1990). In 1997 she criticised the approval of the Czech-German Declaration of Reconciliation.
Since 2005, she has been a member of the German parliamentary committee for human rights and humanitarian aid and spokesperson for human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and humanitarian aid of the CDU/Christian Social Union
Christian Social Union of Bavaria
The Christian Social Union in Bavaria is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It operates only in the state of Bavaria, while its sister party, the Christian Democratic Union , operates in the other 15 states of Germany...
fraction. She is also a deputy member of the parliamentary Committee for the Interior. Since 2000, she has been a member of the national board of the CDU
National board of the CDU
The National board of the CDU is the highest permanent body of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. The board meets at least 6 times a year...
(German, CDU-Bundesvorstand).
In 2009, she was offered the position of Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, but declined.
Federation of Expellees
Steinbach joined the German Federation of ExpelleesFederation of Expellees
The Federation of Expellees or Bund der Vertriebenen is a non-profit organization formed to represent the interests of Germans who either fled their homes in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, or were expelled following World War II....
in 1994. In May 1998 she was elected President of the organization, and was re-elected in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. The Federation of Expellees has approximately 2 million members. This figure was disputed in January 2010 by the German news service DDP, which reported an actual membership of 550,000.
The German Federal Expellee Law
Federal Expellee Law
The Federal Expellee Law is a German federal law of May 19, 1953 which regulates the rights of German refugees from Central and Eastern Europe and defines - in § 6 - who is considered expellees and therefore entitled to get German citizenship, if they wish so...
of 1953 defines as expellee all German nationals and ethnic Germans with a primary residence outside post-war Germany
Allied Occupation Zones in Germany
The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during 1945–49. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, US forces had pushed beyond the previously agreed boundaries for the...
, who lost this residence in the course of the World War II-related flight and expulsions
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
.
Steinbach has distanced herself from the Prussian Trust, that aggressively seeks restitution of German properties in Poland.
Steinbach represents the FoE on the board of the national broadcasting company ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
.http://www.unternehmen.zdf.de/index.php?id=306
Centre Against Expulsions
Erika Steinbach is the founder, along with Peter GlotzPeter Glotz
Peter Glotz was a German social democratic politician and social scientist.Glotz was born in Eger, Sudetenland , to a German father and a Czech mother. His father, an insurance-clerk and member of the Nazi party, worked for an "aryanized" Jewish factory in Prague...
, of the foundation Centre Against Expulsions
Centre Against Expulsions
The Centre Against Expulsions was a planned German documentation centre for expulsions and ethnic cleansing, particularly the expulsion of Germans after World War II. Since March 19, 2008 the name of the project is Sichtbares Zeichen gegen Flucht und Vertreibung...
, which is working to establish a museum for the victims of "Flight, displacements, forced resettlements and deportations all over the world in the past century", a project of the German federal government on initiative and with participation of the Federation of Expellees
Federation of Expellees
The Federation of Expellees or Bund der Vertriebenen is a non-profit organization formed to represent the interests of Germans who either fled their homes in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, or were expelled following World War II....
. The museum will contain a permanent exhibition to document expulsions including the expulsion of Germans after World War II
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
.
The federal government established the federal foundation "Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung" which is intended to be the basis of a future museum. The Federal of Expellees is entitled to appoint some of the board member, although they need to be confirmed by the cabinet.
On 4 March 2009 the Federation of Expellees decided not to nominate Steinbach to the council and instead left one seat unoccupied, after the social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
party (SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
) threatened to veto Steinbach's appointment to the board. On October 19, 2009, after the SPD was ousted from government and replaced by a liberal-conservative coalition dominated by Steinbach's party, Steinbach announced her intention to take the seat at the board. However, objections against her were subsequently also raised by the new foreign minister Guido Westerwelle
Guido Westerwelle
Guido Westerwelle [] is a German liberal politician, who, since 28 October 2009, has been serving as the Foreign Minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and who was Vice Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011. He is the first openly gay person to hold either of those positions...
of the liberal FDP party. However, Steinbach is supported by her own party and the CSU party, both of which have called upon Westerwelle to give up his resistance, and have cited earlier statements by Westerwelle where he had praised Steinbach a few years ago.
In 2006 she was involved in an exhibition on the expulsions in Europe in the 20th century. The exhibition deals with expulsions of German, Armenians, Poles, Turks, Greeks, Latvians, Karelians, Ukrainians, Italians and other peoples - topics many Europeans are unfamiliar with. The last item of the exhibition was a reconciliatory suitcase from Poland dedicated to a peaceful Polish, German and Ukrainian future generation .
International human rights activism
As the CDU/CSUCDU/CSU
CDU/CSU, unofficially also referred to as the Union parties or the Union, is the name of the Bundestag parliamentary faction comprising the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria , considered to be sister parties...
spokeswoman for human rights, Erika Steinbach is involved in a number of activities promoting human rights worldwide.
She was an expert speaker at the International Cuba Conference of the International Society for Human Rights
International Society for Human Rights
The International Society for Human Rights is an international non-governmental, non-profit human rights organization with Participative Status with the Council of Europe and is a member of the Liaison Committee of the Non-Governmental Organisations at the Council of Europe...
in 2006.
Franz Werfel Human Rights Award
Together with Peter GlotzPeter Glotz
Peter Glotz was a German social democratic politician and social scientist.Glotz was born in Eger, Sudetenland , to a German father and a Czech mother. His father, an insurance-clerk and member of the Nazi party, worked for an "aryanized" Jewish factory in Prague...
, she was the primary initiator of the Franz Werfel Human Rights Award
Franz Werfel Human Rights Award
The Franz Werfel Human Rights Award is an international human rights award in Europe. It is awarded to individuals or groups who, through political, artistic, philosophical or practical work, have opposed breaches of human rights by genocide, ethnic cleansing and the deliberate destruction of...
, and serves as a jury member together with Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg , also known by his royal name as Archduke Otto of Austria, was the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918, a realm which comprised modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,...
, Klaus Hänsch
Klaus Hänsch
Klaus Hänsch is a German Politician. He is a Member of the European Parliament representing the SPD, and sits with the Party of European Socialists group....
and Otto Graf Lambsdorff
Otto Graf Lambsdorff
Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von der Wenge Graf Lambsdorff, known as Otto Graf Lambsdorff, was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party.- Biography :...
among others. It has been awarded every second year since 2003 in the Frankfurt Paulskirche. The 2009 recipient was Herta Müller
Herta Müller
Herta Müller is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet and essayist noted for her works depicting the effects of violence, cruelty and terror, usually in the setting of Communist Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceauşescu regime which she experienced herself...
.
Interest in Language
Steinbach was member of the Goethe-InstitutGoethe-Institut
The Goethe-Institut is a non-profit German cultural institution operational worldwide, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and relations. The Goethe-Institut also fosters knowledge about Germany by providing information on German...
from 1994 to 2002. She is also member of the Verein Deutsche Sprache.http://www.vds-ev.de/bekanntemitglieder
Political positions
Erika Steinbach is viewed as conservative within the CDU in most fields of policy. Her work as a member of parliament focuses on human rights, and she is a strong critic of human rights violations in communist countries around the world. She is also a strong supporter of the process of European integration.Steinbach endorses the Charta of the German expellees of August 1950.
Social policy
Erika Steinbach holds conservative views on social policy and opposes abortionAbortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
and same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
, which sometimes has caused controversy.
Perception
Erika Steinbach is much more widely known in PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
than in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. According to Cordell and Wolff (2005), the political importance the Federation of Expellees
Federation of Expellees
The Federation of Expellees or Bund der Vertriebenen is a non-profit organization formed to represent the interests of Germans who either fled their homes in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, or were expelled following World War II....
has in German politics is overestimated in Poland and the Czech Republic because of its unproportional media presence in these countries and campaigns of "aggressively nationalist politicians".
Criticism
Steinbach's public pronouncements have been criticized for causing a deterioration in German-Polish relations. Steinbach has a negative reputation in Poland, where she and the Centre against ExpulsionsCentre Against Expulsions
The Centre Against Expulsions was a planned German documentation centre for expulsions and ethnic cleansing, particularly the expulsion of Germans after World War II. Since March 19, 2008 the name of the project is Sichtbares Zeichen gegen Flucht und Vertreibung...
are sometimes associated with Nazism. One example of this was a 2003 cover montage of Polish newsmagazine Wprost
Wprost
Wprost is a weekly newsmagazine in Poland. It was founded on December 5, 1982 as a regional magazine in Greater Poland, but since 1989 it has been distributed nationwide. The editorial office is currently located in Warsaw. Wprost is an opinion weekly focused on politics and society. Marek Król is...
that depicted her riding Chancellor Gerhard Schröder
Gerhard Schröder
Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor...
while wearing an SS uniform. In 2007 Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza is a leading Polish newspaper. It covers the gamut of political, international and general news. Like all the Polish newspapers, it is printed on compact-sized paper, and is published by the multimedia corporation Agora SA...
, a popular newspaper in Poland, reproduced a leaflet presenting Steinbach in the succession of the Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
and the Nazis, and reminded of the full compensations never paid to Poland for losses caused by the Nazi Germany.
Polish ambassador to Germany, Marek Prawda, Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk
Donald Tusk
Donald Franciszek Tusk is a Polish politician who has been Prime Minister of Poland since 2007. He was a co-founder and is chairman of the Civic Platform party....
expressed unease with Steinbach's appointment to the board of the Center against Expulsions in February 2009.
Władysław Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor who is Poland’s commissioner on relations with Germany, said that giving Mrs Steinbach a seat on the board would be akin to the Vatican appointing a Holocaust denier like Richard Williamson to manage relations with Israel. On 16 September 2010, Steinbach attested Bartoszewski "a bad character" on German TV.http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,717858,00.html
The Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, privately warned Berlin that allowing Mrs Steinbach’s appointment would shake German-Polish relations “to their foundations”.
Do people whose families lived there for generations want to be identified with a person like Mrs. Steinbach, who came to our country with Hitler and had to leave it with Hitler too ? Sikorski said in Brussels on Feb. 23 2009, referring to Steinbach’s father having moved to German occupied Poland during the war and asked her to follow the example of President Horst Köhler, who was born within family of wartime German settlers in Poland and never considered himself an expellee. The fact that Steinbach represents a person born to German officer stationed in occupied Poland has been described as one of essential issues for Poles.
In Germany the Polish criticism is considered to be part of an anti-German campaign in which Steinbach became the enemy stereotype and demonization of Steinbach a kind of reason of state. The way she is portrayed in Polish public had rather "hysteric features" or is described as a "psychosis".
Especially conservative nationalists in the PiS
PIS
Pis or PIS may refer to:* Prawo i Sprawiedliwość , Polish political party* Manneken Pis, a sculpture of a urinating boy, a Brussels landmark* Poitiers - Biard Airport in France...
are blamed to have used her as a bogey in internal politics to counter Donald Tusk
Donald Tusk
Donald Franciszek Tusk is a Polish politician who has been Prime Minister of Poland since 2007. He was a co-founder and is chairman of the Civic Platform party....
ignoring Steinbach's real views.
In 2011 Steinbach visited Poland for the third time, where she laid a floral wreath at the commemoral site of the victims of Nazism in Piasnica
Piasnica
Wielka Piaśnica is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Puck, within Puck County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately west of Puck and north-west of the regional capital Gdańsk...
, and visited a church of Gdynia, where German expellee victims are commemorated.
Lecture controversy
In May 2008 Steinbach started a series of lectureLecture
thumb|A lecture on [[linear algebra]] at the [[Helsinki University of Technology]]A lecture is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history,...
s about the "German settlement in Eastern Central Europe
History of German settlement in Eastern Europe
The presence of German-speaking populations in Central and Eastern Europe is rooted in centuries of history, with the settling in northeastern Europe of Germanic peoples predating even the founding of the Roman Empire...
" at the University of Potsdam
University of Potsdam
The University of Potsdam is a German university, situated across four campuses in Potsdam, Brandenburg, including the New Palace of Sanssouci and the Park Babelsberg.- Profile :...
. However demonstrations by far-left students who protested against Steinbach's allegedly revisionist view on German history by throwing waterfilled balloons and blocking the entrances compelled her to cancel the further lectures. On June 11, 2008, a full meeting of the students council decided (with 146 against 7 votes) to protect the right of freedom of opinion and speech and invited Steinbach again, if necessary under police protection. The local Mayor, supported by several political parties, expressed his displeasure about the incident and requested that the university council invite Steinbach again.
Honours
On July 9, 2009, she was awarded the Bavarian Order of MeritBavarian Order of Merit
The Bavarian Order of Merit is the order of merit of the Free State of Bavaria. It is awarded by the Minister-President of Bavaria as a "recognition of outstanding contributions to the Free State of Bavaria and the Bavarian people"....
by Prime Minister of Bavaria Horst Seehofer
Horst Seehofer
Horst Lorenz Seehofer is a German politician . He was Federal Minister for Health and Social Security from 1992 to 1998 and served as Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection in the cabinet of Angela Merkel from 2005 to 2008...
for her work for the rights of the victims of the Expulsion.
External links
Bundestag biography Federation of Expellees- Centre Against Expulsions
- The Warsaw Voice newspaper article, "Border Dispute", 2003
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty article about Centre Against Expulsions, 2003