PRAGUE - Bernd Posselt, the head of the Sudeten German Regional Association (SdL), considers the organisation of a congress of Sudeten Germans in Brno next year a logical step in the recent harmonious development of mutual relations between the Czech Republic and Germany. Posselt said this at today's annual conference of the Czech-German Discussion Forum at the Foreign Ministry in Prague.
The association, which represents the interests of Germans displaced from Czechoslovakia after World War II and their descendants, has announced plans to hold a congress in Brno this week. Sudeten Germans were invited to Brno in June by the Meeting Brno initiative at a congress in Reims. It will be the first time a Sudeten German congress will be held in the Czech Republic.
Posselt said in Prague today that the organisation of the congress in Brno was a logical step in the harmonious development of mutual relations in recent years. It will build on smaller events that have already been held in the Czech Republic. „It is a normal step within civil society. How politicians will approach it is for each individual to decide,“ he said. He said everyone will be invited and will decide for themselves whether to attend.
At the end of October, about 150 people protested in Prague and Brno against a possible congress of Sudeten Germans. They warned against attempts to revise history. The Brno City Council also received a „Declaration against a Sudeten German Congress in Brno“. „We ask the Brno City Council to stop all steps to organise a congress of the so-called Sudeten Germans, also called Landsmans and falsely by some politicians ‚our compatriots‘,“ the declaration reads Declaration, which is available on the website of the Czech Borderland Club. The club brings together mainly former members, helpers and workers of the Czechoslovak border guards.
ČTK/ceskenoviny.cz/gnews.cz-jav
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