Erika Steinbach

Erika Steinbach
Steinbach in 2014
Member of Parliament
for Frankfurt am Main II
In office
20 December 1990 – 24 October 2017
Preceded byRita Streb-Hesse
Succeeded byBettina Wiesmann
Personal details
Born
Erika Hermann

(1943-07-25) 25 July 1943 (age 81)
Rahmel, Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, Nazi Germany
Political partyCDU (1974–2017)
AfD (since 2022)
CommitteesCommittee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid (2005–2017)
Websitewww.erika-steinbach.de

Erika Steinbach (pronunciationⓘ, born 25 July 1943)[1] is a German right-wing politician. She previously served as a member of the Bundestag from 1990 until 2017.[2]

She was a member of the Christian Democratic Union from 1974 to 2017, and served as a member of the CDU national board 2000–2010, as a member of the leadership of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and as the CDU/CSU's spokeswoman on human rights and humanitarian aid 2005–2017.[3] Steinbach belonged to the socially conservative wing of the CDU and opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. During the European migrant crisis, Steinbach was critical of Chancellor Merkel's policies: in January 2017 she left the CDU over the migrant issue, from then on sitting as an independent member of the Bundestag. She did not stand in the September 2017 federal election, therefore leaving the Bundestag. Instead, Steinbach has publicly endorsed the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), though she did not become a member of the right-wing populist party.[4] In 2018 Steinbach became President of the Desiderius-Erasmus-Stiftung, a political foundation affiliated with the AfD.[5] A long-time member of the German-Israeli Association, Steinbach is also known for pro-Israeli views, and has often criticized the German Foreign Office for voting in favour of anti-Israeli resolutions at the UN.[6]

In addition to her parliamentary activity, Steinbach was president of the Federation of Expellees from 1998 to 2014. Erika Steinbach studied music and was a member of concert orchestras before becoming a politician.

Early life

[edit]

Steinbach's father, Wilhelm Karl Hermann, was born in Hanau (Hesse, western-central Germany), but his family had their origins in Lower Silesia.[7] In 1941 he was stationed in Rumia (German: Rahmel), a village in the Second Polish Republic, which was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939 as part of the newly created province of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia.[8] Wilhelm Karl Hermann served there as an airfield technician as a Luftwaffe Sergeant. Steinbach's mother, Erika Hermann (née Grote), was ordered to work in the town after the annexation as a Luftwaffenhelfer.[8] Steinbach was born there as Erika Hermann.[9]

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.[8][10][11] In 1948 the family moved to Berlin, where Steinbach's grandfather had become mayor of one of the districts.[citation needed]

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.[8][11] In 1967 she had to abandon her music career due to a damaged finger.[8][11] 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.[8][11]

Political career

[edit]

Career in the CDU, Member of Parliament

[edit]

In 1974 she joined the Frankfurt branch of the CDU.[8] In 1977 she was elected a member of the Frankfurt City Council and held that post until 1990.[12]

She was elected a member of the Bundestag in 1990, for the constituency of Frankfurt am Main III[11] representing that until 1998. Since 2005, she has represented the constituency of Frankfurt am Main II. In 1990 she voted against the German–Polish Border Treaty (1990).[8] In 1997 she criticized the approval of the Czech-German Declaration of Reconciliation.[8]

Since 2005, she has been a member of the German parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid and spokesperson for human rights and humanitarian aid of the CDU/Christian Social Union fraction.[citation needed] She is also a deputy member of the parliamentary Committee for the Interior.[citation needed] Since 2000, she has been a member of the national board of the CDU (German, CDU-Bundesvorstand).[citation needed]

In 2009, she was offered the position of Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, but declined.[13]

Federation of Expellees

[edit]

Steinbach joined the German Federation of Expellees in 1994. In May 1998 she was elected President of the organization, and was re-elected in 2000, 2002,[8] 2004,[14] 2006, 2008 and 2010.[15] The Federation of Expellees claims to have 1.3 million members.[16] This figure was disputed in January 2010 by the German news service DDP, which reported an actual membership of 550,000.[17]

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.[18]

Steinbach has distanced herself from the Prussian Trust, that aggressively seeks restitution of German properties in Poland.[19]

Steinbach represents the Federation of Expellees on the board of the national broadcasting company ZDF.[20]

Centre Against Expulsions

[edit]

Erika Steinbach is the founder, along with Peter Glotz, of the foundation Centre Against Expulsions (German: Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen), 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",[21] 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 Federation of Expellees is entitled to appoint some of the board member, although they need to be confirmed by the cabinet.[citation needed]

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 of Germany (SPD) threatened to veto Steinbach's appointment to the board.[22] On 19 October 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.[23] However, objections against her were subsequently also raised by the new foreign minister Guido Westerwelle of the liberal Free Democratic Party.[24] However, Steinbach is supported by her own party and the CSU, 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.[25][26]

In 2006 she was involved in an exhibition on the expulsions in Europe in the 20th century.[27][28] The exhibition deals with expulsions of German, Armenians, Poles, Turks, Greeks, Latvians, Karelians, Ukrainians, Italians and other peoples – topics many Europeans are unfamiliar with.

International human rights activism

[edit]

As the CDU/CSU spokeswoman for human rights, Erika Steinbach is involved in a number of activities promoting human rights worldwide.[citation needed]

She was an expert speaker at the International Cuba Conference of the International Society for Human Rights in 2006.[29]

Franz Werfel Human Rights Award

[edit]

Together with Peter Glotz, 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.[citation needed]

Membership of the CDU national board

[edit]

Steinbach was a member of the CDU national board from 2000 to September 2010, when she chose to resign from the position following a controversy over comments about the German invasion of Poland. Steinbach, in support of other members of her expellee organization, said that the German attack on Poland was just a response to Poland's mobilization, resulting in criticism of her.[30] Steinbach's resignation was met with mixed feelings within the CDU/CSU. Some members were worried that her departure could cause a split, and a formation of a new right wing party in Germany.[30]

End of CDU membership

[edit]

Steinbach left the CDU in January 2017, stating that Chancellor Angela Merkel's decisions during the European migrant crisis, which she called a violation of the German law, prompted her decision.[31] She did not run in the 2017 federal election.

Affiliation with the AfD

[edit]

After leaving the CDU, Steinbach became informally associated with the AfD. In 2018 Steinbach became President of the Desiderius-Erasmus-Stiftung, a political foundation affiliated with the AfD.[5][32] As President of the foundation, Steinbach has also advocated pro-Israeli views.[6]

Interest in language

[edit]

Steinbach was member of the Goethe-Institut from 1994 to 2002.[33] She is also member of the Verein Deutsche Sprache.[34]

Political positions

[edit]

Erika Steinbach was considered conservative within the CDU in most fields of policy, belonging to the initiators of the Berliner Kreis in der Union [de].[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] She is also a strong supporter of the process of European integration.[citation needed]

Steinbach endorses the Charter of the German expellees of August 1950.[35]

Social policy

[edit]

Erika Steinbach holds conservative views on social policy and opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, which sometimes has caused controversy.[19]

Immigration

[edit]

Since the onset of the European migrant crisis, Steinbach has been one of the most vocal critics of Chancellor Merkel's refugee policies. This resulted in her leaving the CDU in January 2017; she said that allowing so many people into Germany for months without identifying them properly went "against our laws and against EU treaties" and that she could no longer support the CDU.[36]

Perception

[edit]

Erika Steinbach is much more widely known in Poland and the Czech Republic than in Germany.[37] 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 disproportional media presence in those countries and campaigns of "aggressively nationalist politicians".[37]

Criticism

[edit]

Steinbach's public pronouncements have been criticized by late President of Poland Lech Kaczyński for causing a deterioration in German-Polish relations.[38] Steinbach has a negative reputation in Poland. One example of this was a 2003 cover montage of Polish news magazine Wprost that depicted her riding Chancellor Gerhard Schröder while wearing an SS uniform.[39] In 2007 Gazeta Wyborcza, a popular newspaper in Poland, reproduced a leaflet[40] presenting Steinbach in the succession of the Teutonic Knights and the Nazis, and repeated claims of the full compensations never paid[41][42] to Poland for losses caused by Nazi Germany.[43]

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.[44] 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.[45] On 16 September 2010, Steinbach attested Bartoszewski "a bad character" on German TV.[46] At the time the Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, privately warned Berlin that allowing Mrs Steinbach’s appointment would shake German-Polish relations “to their foundations”.[45] "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 23 February 2009, referring to Steinbach’s father having moved to German-occupied Poland during the war[47] and asked her to follow the example of President Horst Köhler, who was born within a family of wartime German settlers in Poland and never considered himself an expellee.[48] The fact that Steinbach represents a person born to a German officer stationed in occupied Poland has been described as one of the essential issues for Poles.[49]

Václav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic and anti-communist dissident, was said to refuse to speak to Steinbach due to the positions taken by the Federation of Expellees under her leadership.[30]

According to an editorial in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, the Polish criticism may be part of an "anti-German campaign" in which Steinbach has become the "enemy stereotype"[50] and "demonization of Steinbach is a kind of reason of state".[51] The way she is portrayed to the Polish public has been described by some German editorial writers as having "hysteric features"[52] or a "psychosis".[53] Some German media blame members of Law and Justice for having used her as a "hate figure" in internal politics to counter Donald Tusk[54] ignoring Steinbach's "real views".[51]

Lecture controversy

[edit]

In May 2008 Steinbach started a series of lectures about the "German settlement in Eastern Central Europe" at the University of Potsdam. However demonstrations by left-wing students who protested against Steinbach's allegedly revisionist views on German history by throwing water filled balloons and blocking the entrances compelled her to cancel the further lectures.[55][56] On 11 June 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.[57]

Honours

[edit]

On 9 July 2009, she was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit by Prime Minister of Bavaria Horst Seehofer for her work for the rights of the victims of the Expulsion.[58]

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Biografie: Erika Steinbach". Deutsche und Polen. Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. Retrieved 23 July 2018.
  2. ^ "Erika Steinbach beendet 2017 Politikkarriere". Die Zeit (in German). 7 August 2015. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  3. ^ "CDU/CSU-Fraktion im Deutschen Bundestag: Themen – Arbeitsgruppen". Cducsu.de. Archived from the original on 26 October 2007. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  4. ^ Amann, Melanie (20 May 2017). "Erika Steinbach unterstützt AfD im Wahlkampf". Spiegel Online (in German). Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  5. ^ a b "Erika Steinbach neue Vorsitzende AfD-naher Stiftung". www.fr.de. 4 March 2018.
  6. ^ a b Juden und die AfD, geht das zusammen?
  7. ^ "Erika Steinbach bestreitet Sinneswandel". Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 3 November 2005.[permanent dead link]
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg online [1]
  9. ^ Schuller, Konrad (23 May 2011). "Erika Steinbach Ein Handkuss für die Bestie". FAZ.NET.
  10. ^ Szubarczyk, Piotr; Piotr Semków (May 2004). "Erika z Rumi". Biuletyn IPN (in Polish). 50 (4): 49–53.
  11. ^ a b c d e n-tv ""Rotes Tuch" für Polen – Erika Steinbach – n-tv.de". Archived from the original on 9 April 2009. Retrieved 7 April 2009.
  12. ^ "Bundestag biography". Archived from the original on 4 March 2013.
  13. ^ "Single News Display – mit Kommentaren: JUNGE FREIHEIT – Wochenzeitung aus Berlin". Jungefreiheit.de. Archived from the original on 7 March 2012. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  14. ^ "BdV-Präsidentin Erika Steinbach mit überwältigender Mehrheit wiedergewählt". Bund der Vertriebenen website (in German). BdV. 2004. Archived from the original on 18 May 2004. Retrieved 8 May 2004.
  15. ^ "Steinbach im Amt bestätigt". KNA. 23 October 2010. Archived from the original on 11 February 2013. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
  16. ^ "BdV – Der BdV – Struktur". Bund-der-vertriebenen.de. Archived from the original on 10 August 2013. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  17. ^ Reported by ARD News service in January 2010 (The figure of 550,000 does not include the State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). The news report mentioned that an expert in the area of expellees, Prof. Matthias Stickler of Würzburg University as saying that a decline in Federation of Expellees membership is understandable because it “mirrors the death of the generation of that era"[2]
  18. ^ Bundestag (1953). "Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge". Juris.de (in German). German Ministry of Justice. Retrieved 28 February 2005.
  19. ^ a b 3sat.online. "3sat.online". 3sat.de. Retrieved 8 March 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  20. ^ "Die von Ihnen gewünschten Inhalte sind unter der aufgerufenen Adresse nicht oder auch nicht mehr vorhanden". www.unternehmen.zdf.de. ZDF. Archived from the original on 5 March 2012.
  21. ^ "ZgV – Zentrum gegen Vertreibung: Franz-Werfel-Menschenrechtspreis 2016". www.z-g-v.de. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011.
  22. ^ SPIEGEL, DER (4 March 2009). "Stiftungsrat-Streit mit Polen: Vertriebenenbund zieht Steinbachs Nominierung zurück". Der Spiegel.
  23. ^ "Kolejny ruch Eriki Steinbach". rp.pl. 19 October 2009. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  24. ^ Der Spiegel: "Merkel wird den Fall Steinbach nicht los". 17 November 2009. [3]
  25. ^ "Politik-Nachrichten | RP ONLINE.DE". Nachrichten.rp-online.de. Archived from the original on 23 November 2009. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  26. ^ "CSU-General Dobrindt fordert: Westerwelle soll sich mit Vertrieben-Chefin Erika Steinbach versöhnen – Politik" (in German). Bild.de. 21 November 2009. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  27. ^ "Polish Press Review: 'Exhibit Hurtful to Polish-German Relations' | DW | 11 August 2006". DW.COM. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
  28. ^ "League of German Expellees Unwilling to Investigate Own Past | DW | 14 August 2006". DW.COM. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
  29. ^ "Experts and Speakers- International Society for Human Rights". Ishr.org. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  30. ^ a b c Paterson, Tony (11 September 2010). "Merkel ally quits after claiming Nazis didn't start war". The Independent.
  31. ^ "Erika Steinbach verlässt die CDU und wirft Merkel Rechtsbruch vor". Die Welt (in German). 14 January 2014. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
  32. ^ "Erika Steinbach neue Vorsitzende AfD-naher Stiftung". Frankfurter Rundschau (in German). 4 March 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
  33. ^ Munzinger Online, s.v. Erika Steinbach, accessed 12 September 2010
  34. ^ "Bekannte Mitglieder". Vds-ev.de. Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  35. ^ Giordano, Ralph (27 February 2009). "Erika Steinbach ist keine Revanchistin". Hamburger Abendblatt 27 February 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2009.
  36. ^ "Longtime Merkel critic resigns from CDU over migrants | DW | 14 January 2017". DW.COM. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
  37. ^ a b Cordell, Karl; Wolff, Stefan (2005). Routledge advances in European politics. Volume 28. Germany's foreign policy towards Poland and the Czech Republic: Ostpolitik revisited. Routledge. p. 149. ISBN 0-415-36974-6. Retrieved 25 August 2009.
  38. ^ "Berlin-Warsaw Relations: Poles Apart – Spiegel Online". Spiegel.de. 23 October 2006. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  39. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 10 August 2008. Retrieved 27 April 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  40. ^ "polish leaflet of 2007". Archived from the original on 25 May 2011.
  41. ^ "CEEOL The Polish Foreign Affairs Digest, Issue 1 (14) /2005". Ceeol.com. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  42. ^ "The Question of the Polish Forced Labourer during and in the Aftermath ofWorld War II: The Example of the Warthegau Forced Labourers". Remember.org. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  43. ^ "Powiernictwo Polskie: Ulotka ze Steinbach na tle nazisty" (in Polish). Wiadomosci.gazeta.pl. Archived from the original on 15 July 2012. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  44. ^ "Merkel Ally Says She Won't Insist on Disputed Museum Post | Europe | DW.DE | 28.02.2009". Dw-world.de. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  45. ^ a b - Friday (1 January 1970). "World news and international headlines – The National". Thenational.ae. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  46. ^ "'A Bad Character': Expellee Leader Steinbach Insults Veteran Polish Politician – Spiegel Online". Der Spiegel. Spiegel.de. 16 September 2010. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  47. ^ "Merkel, Tusk Meeting Overshadowed by Postwar German Expulsion". Bloomberg. 27 February 2009.
  48. ^ "Erika Steinbach Reconciles". Wyborcza.pl. 25 February 2009. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  49. ^ "Semka: Polska – Niemcy. Czas niezrozumienia". rp.pl. 27 February 2009. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  50. ^ Feindbild Erika Steinbach Archived 18 September 2012 at archive.today Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 1 March 2009 (in German)
  51. ^ a b Wahn und Raserei Süddeutsche Zeitung, 8 January 2010
  52. ^ Merkels Eiertanz um Erika Steinbach Die Tageszeitung, 24 February 2009 (in German)
  53. ^ Die "Steinbach-Psychose" der Polen Rheinische Post 3 March 2009 (in German)
  54. ^ Ein Popanz namens Erika Steinbach Der Westen, 25 February 2009 (in German)
  55. ^ Wallbraun, Swantje (3 June 2008). "Universität Potsdam: Erika Steinbach sagt Vorträge nach Protesten ab". Die Welt – via www.welt.de.
  56. ^ "Uni Potsdam: Polizei löst Sitzblockade gegen Steinbach-Vortrag auf". Der Spiegel. 28 May 2008.
  57. ^ "Märkische Allgemeine, Oberbürgermeister fordert Universität auf sich dem Konflikt zu stellen".
  58. ^ "Bayerisches Landesportal: Bayerischer Verdienstorden für Erika Steinbach". Bayern.de. Archived from the original on 16 February 2012. Retrieved 8 March 2013.