On August 10, an exhibition was opened in Germany to remember the suffering of Germans deported from Poland and the former Czechoslovakia following World War ii.Forced Paths is intended to be an initial step toward creation of a permanent center in Berlin honoring the 12 million Germans deported from Eastern Europe after the war.

The exhibition attempts to depict the German deportations as “one of many mass ethnic expulsions carried out in the 20th century” (Times,August 10). Such a move coming from a nation that at the time attempted not to expel, but extinguish, an entire race indicates a dangerous mindset.

“We owe it to ourselves,” Christian Democrat politician Erika Steinbach said last Wednesday. “We owe it to history and our collective memory.”

The Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, identifies this exhibition as an attempt to represent Germans as victims—which, of course, it is. The president, who is openly distrustful of Germany, said, “It will be better for relations between our countries if this center never comes into existence.”

The Poles are worried. Feelings run strong that “the Association of Deported Germans [has] become such a powerful lobbyist that it [is] forcing a rewriting of German history” (ibid.).

We must not forget: The peace concluded by the Allies via the Potsdam conference in July-August 1945 specifically demanded the removal of Germans from Polish and Czech territory (many of whom were actual or suspected Nazi collaborators). It was Hitler’s seizure of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia and of Poland that started it all! At the end of the war, the expulsion of German people from Czech and Polish territory was a deliberate strategy to protect Europe from ever again suffering domination by Germany.

Of course, this is not to say individual Germans didn’t suffer: Wars have consequences. What is at issue is the increasing tendency to portray the aggressors in a war as the victims. More and more, for example, the finger is being pointed at Britain for its bombing of German cities such as Dresden during the war. This trend has been gathering steam in Germany for several years.

Consider the attitude displayed in the words of then-German Federal President Johannes Rau in a speech before the Association of German Expellees in September 2003: “The suffering of each and every one [alluding to Germans] comes before all judgments, before any considerations of right and wrong, cause and effect” (emphasis ours). In his speech, as commentator Rodney Atkinson wrote, Rau sought to “ameliorate German atrocities in Europe by equating them with the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe after the war. Rau even partly blames the Allies for Hitler’s crimes ….” Rau’s speech actually reflects a philosophy that has been emerging in recent years in Germany that one may label victimhood.

In 2002, a fast-selling book that depicted Germans as war victims hit German bookshelves. Der Brand, or The Fire, detailed Allied bombing of German cities during World War ii. In 2003, Die Welt reported the creation of a “Prussian Claims Society” in Germany whose purpose is to process legal suits for individual German property claims in territory belonging to Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia. At that time the Society was distributing claim forms for Germans to claim their property in “East Germany” (i.e. Poland, etc.). A Polish official spoke of “worrying signals” as Germany was increasingly being presented as a “victim” of World War ii. Then in 2004, the German foreign minister tried to depict Germany as the victim of British memories of its militarism, while the biggest national German newspaper suggested Queen Elizabeth of Britain should apologize for British war-time bombing.

The crux of the issue is this: Victimhood in Germany is feeding an awakening German national pride. Historically, this has had global ramifications—and prophecy tells us that it will again.