The question of German responsibility for war crimes also stirs emotions in Germany and is present in local public discourse, not only in the context of Poland. Members of the left party in the Bundestag filed a demand in May about compensation for the victims of the Distomo massacre in Greece. Earlier they asked about an agreement with Namibia.
In March 2023, several MPs from the left tabled an interpellation “The Federal Government and Namibia’s Lack of Consent to the So-Called Agreement on Reconciliation”, and another in May – “Compensation for the Victims of the Distomo Massacre on June 10, 1944 “.
The German left about the crimes in Namibia
In the interpellation on Namibia, the left-wing MPs emphasize that the joint statement negotiated by the German government with the Namibian government and initialed in Berlin on 15 May 2021 has sparked great controversy in part of Namibian society and has not yet been formalized has been approved by the Namibian government.
The German Empire was a colonial power in what is now Namibia in the years 1884-1915 and brutally suppressed uprisings by the local population. During the 1904-1908 war in what was then German South-West Africa, colonial authorities committed mass murders of members of the Herero and Nama ethnic groups. This is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. According to historians, about 65,000 of 80,000 are Herero and at least 10,000 of 20,000 are nama.
The Herero and Nama reject any semblance of compensation
The Association of Ethnic Leaders of Herero and Nama has rejected a German offer to fund infrastructure projects in Namibia as a way of apologizing for genocide during German colonial rule. They believe that 1.1 billion euros in compensation is not enough.
In the interpellation on Greece, the delegates quote the opinion of the German government, according to which the issue of compensation and reparations has been closed in relations with Italy, Greece and Poland
On June 10, 1944, a Waffen-SS unit killed 218 inhabitants of the Greek village of Distomo. Greek courts awarded the survivors of the massacre or their descendants compensation of around €30 million as early as 1997. However, Germany continues to refuse to pay this compensation, just as it refuses to pay compensation to other victims of Nazism and reparations to the Greek state
wrote the MPs.
The German government says the issue is “closed with regard to Italy, Greece and Poland”
they added.
“The question of compensation is far from over.”
The authors of the interpellation disagree and emphasize that this issue is far from over: it is raised by Greece and the victims of National Socialism. The Greek foreign minister “has also often raised the issue of reparations, for example in early April 2023 during a meeting with the German ambassador to Greece”, the authors of the interpellation point out.
They describe as “falsifying history” the position of the German government, according to which Greece, as a signatory to the Protocol of 21 November 1990 of the Paris Round of the “2+4” Conference, accepted the Final Settlement Treaty. with regard to Germany. According to the members of the left, Greece has only taken note of this document and it probably only applies to the reunification of Germany.
The interpellation quotes the opinion of the legal service of the Bundestag, which questions the interpretation according to which Greece is considered to have waived its claims for reparations. On this basis, the left-wing MPs consider it justified that the federal government should immediately pay the compensation imposed by the court in Livadia to the victims of the Distomo massacre, and start negotiations with Greece on open reparations.
The arrogance of the federal government
The left-wing MPs also pointed out in their interpellation that “the denial of not only compensation, but also dialogue about it, is not only substantively unfounded”, but also believe that “the tone chosen by the federal government towards the last living victims of the Nazis or their descendants is inappropriately harsh.”
For the federal government in Berlin, the issue of reparations was legally and politically finalized with the 1990 Two Plus Four treaty between West Germany, East Germany and the four former occupying powers: the US, the Soviet Union, France and the UK that the road to German reunification.
In 2019, MPs from the left also tabled a draft resolution demanding that Germany recognize Greece’s reparations.
On April 6, 1941, Germany invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. Until 1944, SS and Wehrmacht units carried out numerous massacres in Greece. Public mass executions were called retaliation for partisan attacks. Tens of thousands of Greek civilians died in the war. In Athens alone, more than 40,000 people died of starvation. Greeks. Greek industry was destroyed for 80 percent.
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– Unknown German crimes. Konzentrationslager, mass murder and terror on the African ‘Island of Death’ in the first years of the 20th century
— Deputy Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on a visit to Namibia. Jabłoński remembered German crimes in this country. “We support the battle for redress”
– Prime Minister Morawiecki in “The Spectator”: The Second World War is not yet fully settled. “It was a sadistic, horrific genocide”
— Rybińska in “Sieci”: Germany pays for colonial crimes. Berlin recognized its crimes against the tribes of Namibia as genocide
rm/PAP
Source: wPolityce