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Germany
Calling
FROM THE GERMAN JOURNALISTS OF www.german-foreign-policy.com Translated by Edward Spalton and staff of Free Nations
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BACKGROUND REPORT:
The Association for Threatened Peoples Date of report 14
August 2002 The German Association for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) which describes itself as a "human rights organisation" campaigns for the world-wide enforcement of the rights of ethnic groups and the "Right to Homeland" (Heimat). It co-operates with leading organisations influencing German foreign policy, such as the League of Expellees and the Federalist Union of European Peoples' Organisations. It is closely allied with expansionary German foreign policy under the pretext of "advancement of human rights". According to the GfbV's proposals "fundamental human rights" should be enforced by "standing, operationally prepared, military strike forces". Around the year 1995 it became known that the former Nazi administrator of the Kolomea ghetto in Poland was working for the Advisory Board of GfbV. He was implicated in co-responsibility for the deaths of 30,000 Jews. The well-known, extreme periodical "Young Freedom" expressly praised the "folkish" policy of the GfbV which described itself as "the organiser and supporter of threatened nationalities and original peoples (Stammesvoelker), as well as of ethnic minorities". GfbV maintains particularly close contacts with the Federal Union of European Peoples' Groups (FUEV). The headquarters of FUEV is in Germany and was conclusively connected with the reawakening of German "Folkdom" (Volkstum) and minority activities after the Second World War. Several of its founders are former National Socialist racists. FUEV maintains direct contact with the Foreign Office and is funded by the Federal Republic of Germany. The GfbV was founded in 1970 and with around 8,300 members and 25,000
"Ethnocide" and "Language Murder" The political work of the GfbV is drawn from German Folk (Volk) ideology.
Threatened and persecuted individuals are not at the centre of its concerns Consequently the GfbV combats every form of the rising tendency throughout the world towards the assimilation of "peoples, ethnic and religious communities" into other population groups. "The destruction of the alien" begins with the destruction of languages and culture. This is termed "ethnocide" and "cultural genocide". "To create or to tolerate an atmosphere in which a language cannot survive is language murder". In the eyes of GfbV France is somewhat guilty of this because of its insufficient fostering of regional dialects. France is therefore guilty of "continuing ethnocide". The Most Threatened People : The Germans! The GfbV sees history as, in the main, the history of peoples, particularly in the history of continuing genocide. It maintains "Since the end of the Second World War whole groups of peoples have been expelled and repeatedly given over to genocide in an unending sequence". The genocide theory of the GfbV goes along with a far reaching relativisation of the real, German mass atrocities, especially the Holocaust. Thus, for the GfbV, the German people becomes one of the most threatened peoples. "In world history the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe in the years 1945 to 1948 is the worst case. More than twelve million then lost their homes and three million their lives". Zuelch, the political leader of GfbV complains that the Holocaust was given too great a prominence during "The Tribunal of the Victors". "The war crimes of the allied governments" and "the crime of expulsion of the Eastern and Sudeten Germans (..) which fulfil today's definition of genocide, remain unatoned". In the meantime Zuelch has become a member of the Advisory Committee
of the The last annual meeting of GfbV in 2001 called on the various organisations of German expellees to unite and demanded that the Federal Government must "undertake political steps at an international level so that (...) laws and regulations by which the expulsion of Germans after the Second World War was retrospectively legalised must be repealed by the EU candidate countries in Eastern and Middle Europe. They must be acknowledged as an historical injustice and be remedied. Peoples (Volk) not Human Beings (Mensch) In this close co-operation with the German expellees, a series of contacts and groupings have come to light which place the GfbV clearly in the tradition of "folkish" and National Socialist ideology. In the "national revolutionary" periodical "We Ourselves" the Deputy Leader of GfbV and Chief Editor of its periodical "Pogrom", Andreas Selemci, wrote an article with the title "Suffer Expulsion no longer!" The masthead motto of this paper is "Who speaks not of the peoples (Voelker) should stay silent about human beings "(Menschen). It campaigns for" "national identities" in small, ethnically homogenous units", following the principles of the GfbV. "Europe of the Regions" and "Peoples' Group Rights" The first issue of the GfbV periodical "Pogrom" appeared
in December Wolfgang Mayr (founder member of GfbV South Tyrol, who is crucial for the development of the theme of "ethnic groups within GfbV International) complains in his article about the lack of progress for laws and rights for "national groupings". "One hundred million Europeans belong to over two hundred national groups and minorities. That is one seventh of the European population. This one seventh is certainly discriminated against and excluded. It has not been possible to establish legally binding "people's group laws" because "states like France, England, Greece and Turkey were slowing the process down" In a further article he praised the former South Tyrol MEP of the Green Party, Alexander Langer who supported "ethnically motivated" war. ("Ethno-national tensions could not simply be tackled negatively. They possessed much vitality and authenticity"). Langer supported a "Europe of the Regions" and of "Ethnic Group Rights".."as a constituent element and as a condition of entry into the EU, states must accept cross-border EU Regions and an enforceable charter for "people's groups" as well as a binding minimum commitment to decentralization - for example autonomy and regionalism" "The Yearning for "folkish" Self Determination" The South Tyrol Section of GfbV International is particularly active
in the policy of "peoples' groups". It is entrusted with the
area "Ethnic Minorities in Europe". This GfbV section works
closely with the FUEV and the "South Tyrol People's Group Institute"
(led by former FUEV President, Professor Christoph Pan). Professor Pan
believes that the Institute can make "a constructive contribution
to the solution of the ethnic minorities question in Europe". He
advocates "the development of a European system for the protection
of minorities" above all with the appropriate organs of the European
institutions and Parliament. In 1983 the Institute founded a centre
for Austrian ethnic groups which was to serve as an "embassy"
for ethnic With the support of the South Tyrol Regional Government and the Region
The "ethnic group" propaganda is illustrated with reports from and about "threatened peoples" and "ethnic groups" world-wide. The line taken over Chechnya says that the escalating use of force arises from "the colonial behaviour and thinking of the Russians" whilst the Chechens are reacting to an attempt to "overthrow their culture". In the first war resistance was supported by the longing for ethnic self-determination, by belief in God and in themselves. The contrast between the hungry, immoral Russian soldiers and the steadfast fighters who fired every shot with the cry "Allah Akhbar" could not be greater. (Sections here omitted on "China of the Regions" and the GfbV campaign for the International Criminal Court) TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: "VOLK" The German word Volk translates literally as folk or people but it has a greatly loaded series of meanings in German, carrying mystical and racial overtones. It is the same word which appears in Volkswagen and Herrenvolk. There is no single, satisfactory English equivalent. It can mean society,
community, race or (almost) nation. It has several derived words, amongst
the Volkstum - literally folkdom, volkstuemlichkeit - folkdomliness
and voelkisch which literally translates as folkish but it is certainly
not folksy! I have used various equivalents such as people/people's,
ethnic and national. Volksgruppe literally means folk group but it is
not a musical ensemble, though a folk group would be voelkisch! In some
of the German (and not solely Nazi) thinking, human individuals are
defined by their Volk and their economy is determined by the size and
resources of their Raum (space) where their homeland (Heimat) is situated.
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