Member of Parliament Šimon Heller (KDU-ČSL) suggested awarding the highest political representative of the Sudeten Germans, Bernd Posselt, with a medal for services to the rapprochement of Czechs and Sudeten Germans. According to him, the former Minister of Culture Daniel Herman should receive the same state award. The Seznam Správy server informed about it today. In 2016, Herman was the first member of the Czech government to participate in the Sudeten German Congress.
“I am convinced that Mr. Posselt on the German side and Mr. Herman on the Czech side have done a huge amount of work in our neighborly relations,” Heller told the server.
He recalled that in 2015 Posselt pushed for the deletion of passages from the statutes of the Sudeten German expatriate association relating to “home reacquisition”, i.e. the right to return or compensation for Sudeten German property confiscated after 1945. “Thanks to his initiative, the Sudeten German expatriate association in of those years decided that its main purpose would be cooperation and partnership with the Czech neighbors,” said Heller.
His proposal will be decided next week by the subcommittee for the preparation of proposals for granting or awarding state honors. Heller doesn’t know if he’ll pass. For example, SPD chairman Tomio Okamura criticizes him. “Mr. Posselt and his organization are the gravediggers of the German Nazis, they are rewriting history in a lie, and they are striving for the return of property in the Czech Republic that was rightfully confiscated as elsewhere in Europe on the basis of the Postupim agreement,” he told the server.
In 2016, at the Sudeten German convention, Herman addressed the Sudeten Germans as “dear compatriots”, which earned him loud applause from an audience of around three thousand. In Nuremberg, he recalled the Nazi crimes and the deportation of Sudeten Germans, and expressed regret over the events. Former Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer and Posselt described Herman’s participation as historic. In 2021, at the Sudeten German Congress, Herman received the Charles IV European Award, which is the highest honor of the Sudeten Germans.
After Herman, the then Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Bělobrádek (KDU-ČSL) and last year Minister of Education Mikuláš Bek (STAN) also participated in the Sudeten German Congress in 2017. President Petr Pavel thanked Posselt for improving Czech-German relations last year.
Tags: Peoples Deputy nominated Posselt Sudeten Germans state award
