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| Erika Steinbach | |
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Member of Parliament
for Frankfurt am Main |
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| Born | 25 July 1943 |
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| Birth name | Erika Hermann |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | Christian Democratic Union |
| Committees | Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid (since 2005) |
| Religion | Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church |
| Website | http://www.erika-steinbach.de |
Erika Steinbach (help·info) (born 25 July 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 MPs representing the constituency of Frankfurt, and is the spokeswoman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on human rights and humanitarian aid. She is also a member of the national board of the CDU. Since 1998, she is the president of the Federation of Expellees, an organisation with around 2 million members. Erika Steinbach studied music and was a member of concert orchestras before becoming a politician.
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Steinbach's father, Wilhelm Karl Hermann, was born in Hanau (Hesse, western-central Germany) but his family had come from Lower Silesia[1]. In 1941 after the German invasion of Poland, he was deployed to the town of Rumia (German: Rahmel/Westpr.),[2] until 1919 part of Germany, then from 1919 part of Poland (the Polish Corridor) and in 1939 annexed by Germany. Wilhelm Karl Hermann served there as an airfield technician with the rank of a Luftwaffe Feldwebel. Steinbach's mother, Erika Hermann (née Grote), was ordered to work in the town after the annexation.[2] Steinbach was born there as Erika Hermann.
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.[2][3][4] In 1948 the family moved to Berlin, where Steinbach's grandfather had become mayor of one of the districts.
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.[2][4] In 1967 she abandoned her music career due to an ill finger.[2][4] 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.[2][4]
In 1974 she joined the Frankfurt branch of the CDU party.[2] In 1977 she was elected a member of the Frankfurt City Council and held that post until 1990.
She was elected a member of the Bundestag in 1990, one of two representatives of the constituency of Frankfurt[4] In 1990 she voted against the German–Polish Border Treaty (1990).[2] In 1997 she criticised the approval of the Czech-German Declaration of Reconciliation.[2]
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/Christian Social Union fraction. She is also a deputy member of the parliamentary Committee for the Interior.
Since 2000, she has been a member of the national board of the CDU (German, CDU-Bundesvorstand). In addition, she is on the boards of the Goethe-Institut, the national broadcasting company ZDF, and the Territorial Association of West Prussia.
In 2009, she was offered the position of Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, but declined[5].
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[2], 2004[6], 2006 and 2008. The Federation of Expellees has approximately 2 million members.
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.[7]
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"[8], 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 a future museum. The Federal of Expellees is entitled to appoint some of the board member, although they need to be confirmed by the cabinet.
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 (SPD) threatened to veto Steinbach's appointment to the board[9]. On October 19, 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.[10] However, objections against her were subsequently also raised by the new foreign minister Guido Westerwelle of the liberal FDP party.[11] However, Steinbach is supported by her own party and the CSU party, 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.[12][13]
In 2006 she was involved in an exhibition on the expulsions in Europe in the 20th century.[14] The exhibition deals with expulsions of German, Armenians, Poles, Turks, Greeks, Latvians, Karelians, Ukrainians, Italians and other peoples - topics many Europeans are unfamiliar with. The last item of the exhibition was a reconciliatory suitcase from Poland dedicated to a peaceful Polish, German and Ukrainian future generation.
As the CDU/CSU spokeswoman for human rights, Erika Steinbach is involved in a number of activities promoting human rights worldwide.
She was an expert speaker at the International Cuba Conference of the International Society for Human Rights in 2006[15].
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.
Erika Steinbach is viewed as conservative within the CDU in most fields of policy. 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. She is also a strong supporter of the process of European integration.
Steinbach endorses the Charta of the German expellees of August 1950.[16]
Erika Steinbach holds conservative views on social policy and opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, which sometimes has caused controversy.[17]
Erika Steinbach is much more widely known in Poland and the Czech Republic than in Germany.[18] 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 unproportional media presence in these countries and campaigns of "aggressively nationalist politicians".[18]
Steinbach's position as head of the Federation of Expellees arouses much controversy in Poland,[19], where both she and the organisations she is heading are regularly[citation needed] criticized. Polish ambassador to Germany, Marek Prawda, Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed unease with Steinbach's appointment to the board of the Center against Expulsions in February 2009.[20] Some right-wing Polish and Czech politicians are particularly opposed to her work to construct a memorial to the Germans expelled after World War II.[citation needed]
A 2003 cover montage of Polish newsmagazine Wprost that depicted Steinbach riding Chancellor Gerhard Schröder while wearing an SS uniform.[21] In 2007 Gazeta Wyborcza, a popular newspaper in Poland, reproduced a leaflet[22] presenting Steinbach in the succession of the Teutonic Knights and the Nazis.[23][24] In 2007, Erica Steinbach had compared the coalition led by the Kaczynski twins in Poland to German small far-right parties Republikaner, DVU and NPD.[25]
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 far-left students who protested against Steinbach's allegedly revisionist view on German history by throwing waterfilled balloons and blocking the entrances compelled her to cancel the further lectures[26][27]. On June 11, 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.[28]
On July 9, 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[29].
   | Federation of Expellees - BdV - Der BdV - Präsidentin |
| | The Warsaw Voice - Warsaw Voice - Border Dispute |
 | Centre Against Expulsions - Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen |
| | Erika Steinbach bestreitet Sinneswandel - Erika Steinbach bestreitet Sinneswandel - Nachrichten DIE WELT - WELT ONLINE |
| | Biography as a member - Deutscher Bundestag: Fehlermeldung |
| | Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge - BVFG - nichtamtliches Inhaltsverzeichnis |
| | Bundestag biography - Deutscher Bundestag: Steinbach, Erika |
| | Gedenken mit Schmiss - porträt - Gedenken mit Schmiss | ZEIT ONLINE |
| | Zentrum gegen Versöhnung - Archiv - taz.de |
| | Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen (Official homepage) - ZENTRUM GEGEN VERTREIBUNGEN |
| | Records of Inhabitants of Rahmel since 1638 - Family History Library Catalog |
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