DIE LINKE Welcomes Compensation for Soviet War Prisoners
“DIE LINKE welcomes that the federal government finally – 70 years after liberation – acknowledges the unimaginable suffering of 5.7 million Soviet war prisoners as national-socialist crime and will grant the few survivors at least symbolic compensation. DIE LINKE put the item back on the parliamentary agenda at the beginning of February with its motion “Financial Acknowledgement of National-Socialist Crimes for Soviet War Prisoners” (BT-Drs. 18/3316). Regarding this important historical issue, we expect everyone to refrain from ideologically motivated exclusions and that all groups represented in parliament act together. An exclusion of exactly the group that stressed the situation of the former Soviet war prisoners and demanded their compensation would not just be bad style but completely inacceptable”, declares Jan Korte, vice-chair of DIE LINKE parliamentary group on today’s resolution of the budget committee to grant ten million euro for the compensation of Soviet war prisoners. Korte further:
“Eventually the conservatives accept the moral obligation of the Federal Republic to grant the few remaining victims symbolic compensation. It is crucial now to act fast and unbureaucratic because time is pressing. The foundation “Memory, Responsibility, Future” now has to be granted those ten million euro to be able to help the aged survivors. The change of mind of the federal government is mainly the result of decades-long endeavours of volunteers, initiatives, historians and journalists campaigning relentlessly for the biggest group of the “forgotten victims”. To them we express our gratitude.
The resolution of the government coalition is also a small sensation. Until the last moment the conservatives consequently blocked any attempt to eventually compensate one of the biggest groups of victims of national-socialists’ destructive policy. This position was obviously untenable considering the unanimous opinion of all experts during a hearing of the budget committee on Monday and after the clear positioning of the Federal President in his speech of 6th May in the former war prison Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock.”