Berlin - A major irritant in German-Polish relations was removed on Wednesday when an expellees group said its controversial president would not after all join the board of a new museum depicting the ordeal of Germans expelled from eastern Europe after World War II. The Federation of Expellees said it was withdrawing the nomination of Erika Steinbach, 65, because it did not want to be accused of jeopardizing the museum project, which Steinbach had initiated.
Warsaw had protested at the nomination of Steinbach, a federal deputy for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. Steinbech was born in Poland two years before the end of the war.
Poles regard Steinbach as a divisive figure intent on awakening old antipathies, and charge that Steinbach's parents were aggressors because they moved to Poland, after the Nazi takeover.
Polish government spokesman Pawel Gras welcome Wednesday's announcement, calling it "good news" for his country.
The speaker of Poland's parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski, said the decision showed Germany "has a profound understanding" of the Polish position.
The refugee museum is set to occupy one floor of a Berlin office building, near the expellees' office. It includes a library and documentation centre.
It is intended as a "visible sign" to mark the sufferings of ethnic Germans expelled from Poland and other Eastern European countries in the aftermath of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The 1,200-square-metre exhibition, under the auspices of the German Historical Museum, will also detail the fate of other displaced people in Europe.
The plan has met with reservation in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, where leading politicians warned against a revision of history that could cast Germans as victims rather than aggressors in the war.
Steinbach, who enjoys broad support from former expellees and their descendants, claimed this was not her intention, pointing out the museum was intended to foster reconciliation.
On Friday, Merkel discussed the issue of Steinbach with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk when the two met at a function in the north German port of Hamburg.
The Federation of Expellees has three seats on the 13-member board that will be involved in organizing the displays at the taxpayer-funded museum.
Wednesday's statement from by the expellees group said it would only take up two of the seats and leave the one originally intended for Steinbach unoccupied.
Some 14 million German speakers fled or were expelled from Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the final stages of the war and its aftermath. Some 2 million are estimated to have died or were killed.
