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Erika Steinbach (born July 25, 1943) is a German conservative politician who 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 candidates elected directly from Frankfurt. She is also a president of Federation of Expellees. Erika Steinbach studied music and was a member of concert orchestras before becoming a fulltime politician.

Offices

Steinbach has also been president of the the controversial Federation of Expellees (Template:Lang-de) since 1998 (succeeding Fritz Wittmann), and besides that is a member of the national board of her party, the CDU-Bundesvorstand (since 2000), the board of the Goethe-Institut, the board of the national broadcasting company ZDF, and the board of the Territorial Association of West Prussia. She also is chairwoman of the Centre Against Expulsions.

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/CSU faction.

Biography

Steinbach's father, Wilhelm Karl Hermann, was from Hanau (in Hesse, western-central Germany), . He was sent in 1941 to Rahmel in Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, (now Rumia, Poland) to serve as a technician with the rank of a Luftwaffe Feldwebel (Non-commissioned officer in the German air force) at the local airfield during the war. Her mother Erika (née Grote) lived in Berlin but visited the town occasionally. Steinbach was born there as Erika Hermann.

In January 1944, her father was sent to the Eastern Front. In January 1945, at the height of Allied bombings and attacks by the advancing Soviet Army in the area, Steinbach's mother joined the mass exodus from Eastern Germany in East and went to Schleswig-Holstein together with her children. After several years of wandering through parts of Germany, in 1948 the family found refuge in Berlin, where Steinbach's grandfather had become mayor of one of the districts.

The following year, Wilhelm Karl Hermann returned from Soviet captivity and the family moved to his homeland in Hanau. There, Steinbach finished her education and started studying violin play. In 1967 she had to abandon her music career due to serious bone illness. In 1972, after knowing him for nine years, she married Helmut Steinbach, the conductor of a local youth symphonic orchestra. She then graduated from a school of civil administration and moved to Frankfurt, where she started working for a Communal Evaluation Office.

In 1974 she became the head of a sub-unit of that organization responsible for the computerization of all public libraries in Hesse. The same year she joined the Frankfurt branch of the CDU party. In 1977 she was elected a chairman of the city council and held that post until 1990, when she was elected a member of the Bundestag.

Federation of Expellees

Steinbach became noted by the press for the first time when she was among the strongest opponents of German ratification of the border treaty with Poland. In 1994 she joined the Federation of Expellees and in May of 1998 became the head of that organization.

As Steinbach's parents had no roots of any kind in the area of her birthplace, and her father had been only deployed there as part of his duties in the German occupation force, her birthplace was considered an accident, and the legitimacy of her speaking on behalf of the German expellees was questioned. However, as the 1953 German Federal Expellee Law includes all categories of people who had to leave for whatever reason the areas held by Germany during World War II, she holds officially the status of an expellee.

Centre Against Expulsions

One of her main aims is to build in Berlin a Centre Against Expulsions (Template:Lang-de), a memorial devoted to the victims of forced population migrations or ethnic cleansing in Europe, particularly to the Germans displaced after World War II. She is the chairwoman of the recently created foundation of the Centre.

The initiative, supported by the CDU/CSU faction in German Parliament, has caused much controversy, both in Germany and abroad. Steinbach was re-elected as president of the Bund der Vertriebenen by an overwhelming majority on May 8, 2004

Because of the widely discussed plan to build a centre and monument against forced migration which her organisation is promoting, she has become especially well-known in Poland.

International criticism and abuse

Steinbach's position as head of the Federation of Expellees arouses much controversy in countries which were occupied by Germany during the Second World War. For many people in Central-Eastern Europe, the fact that she was elected head of the Federation despite her family having been relocated to Historical Eastern Germany after 1939 is a sign of German revisionist ideology.

Steinbach's public pronouncements have been criticized for causing a deterioration in German-Polish relations due to stirring up controversy regarding the rights of Germans who were expelled from Poland after World War II. This controversy has led to Steinbach earning a strong negative reputation in Poland which associates her and the Centre against Expulsions with fascism and a German return to 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.

External links

• Records of Inhabitants of Rahmel since 1638
• Template:De icon Bundestag biography
• Template:De icon 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

References

Inline:

1. Template:De icon"Erika Steinbach bestreitet Sinneswandel". Die Welt. Retrieved 2005-11-03.
2. Template:Pl icon Szubarczyk, Piotr (2004). "Erika z Rumi" (PDF). Biuletyn IPN. 50 (4): 49–53. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
3. Cite error: The named reference Blum was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. Template:De icon Gabriele Lesser (2003). "Zentrum gegen Versöhnung". die tageszeitung. 58 (12). {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
5. Template:De icon Jörg Lau (2004). "Gedenken mit Schmiss". Die Zeit (23). {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
6. Template:De icon Bundestag (1953). "Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge". Juris.de. German Ministry of Justice. Retrieved February 28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
7. Template:De icon"BdV-Präsidentin Erika Steinbach mit überwältigender Mehrheit wiedergewählt". Bund der Vertriebenen website. BdV. 2004. Retrieved May 8. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

General:

1. Template:Pl icon Danuta Zagrodzka (2003). "Erika Steinbach: tygrysica wypędzonych". Gazeta Wyborcza. 272 (47/WO): 34. ISSN 0860-908x. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

• 1943 births
• German politicians
• Members of the German Bundestag
• Living people