Daniel Herman received the highest award of the Sudeten Germans in Munich

Herman was congratulated not only by the head of the Sudeten Germans, Bernd Posselt, who presented the award to the former minister, but also by the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder. According to Posselt, Herman is a role model for many people who are still afraid to look at the truth of history.

“I really appreciate the award and I understand it as a great support for my contribution to the German-Czech understanding and friendship between the Germans and the Czechs, to breaking down prejudices and to deepening further cooperation,” said Herman. “The centuries-old coexistence of Czechs and Germans, Christians and Jews in the Czech lands seemed permanently destroyed 70 years ago. National socialism, two world wars, Nazi crimes with an incomprehensible Holocaust and subsequent revenge of victors that resulted in the expulsion of German compatriots and then 40 years of communist regime have deeply damaged our coexistence, “he added.

But then came 1989, when communist regimes in Europe collapsed. “The contacts of that time and, in part, the friendships have become a good starting point. Today, we can see with great gratitude how much has been done for the new coexistence of our nations,” Herman said.

Daniel Herman In 2016, he was the first member of the Czech government to take part in the Sudeten German Congress. He addressed the Sudetenland at a meeting in Nuremberg at the time Germans “dear compatriots”. Herman said on the sidelines of the current congress that he considered the address “nice compatriots” to be logical and correct.

“In the last forty years that I have been dealing with German-Czech relations, I have understood how important it is to manage my own past,” said Herman. “Only the one who knows his past has a future. To know his own past so that the future can be created together. That is the task for all of us,” he added. Therefore, according to him, it is necessary to bring new impulses to the Czech-German coexistence, so as not to revive old prejudices.

“We can, and must, as Germans and Czechs work, contribute to the Czech-German neighborhood so that the European project of peace and freedom does not jeopardize populism and short-sighted national interests,” he said.

The first Czech politician

In his speech, Söder thanked Herman for attending the congress in 2016 as the first representative of the Czech government. “He was the first politician to say that the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans was unfair. At the time, he also used a nice address from nice compatriots,” Söder said. “And he deserves his heartfelt thanks for that,” he said. The Bavarian prime minister also said that reconciliation was not a matter of course. “Reconciliation is something extraordinary,” he added.

Söder told the Sudeten Germans that without them Bavaria was unimaginable today, although when they arrived in the country after World War II, some of the people at the time were prejudiced. He also stressed that the central task of Bavaria is to take care of the neighborhood with the Czech Republic and that during the heightened moments of the covid-19 pandemic, cooperation between Prague and Munich was important.

According to Posselt, it was during the pandemic that the Czechs and Germans needed it. “That’s right, we need each other and especially in difficult times,” he said. He noted that for young people, the pandemic was the first encounter with the fact that an open Europe is not a matter of course. “We are not only fighting with coronavirus, but also with the nationalism virus,” he said. Posselt also expressed reservations that states were closing their borders. “Suddenly, police officers were standing at the border with automatic weapons, as if they wanted to shoot the virus,” he said.

He also criticized the fact that the Czechia did not transfer patients to nearby Germany in the border region even at the time of hospital overcrowding, but instead drove them hundreds of kilometers to free Czech clinics from national prestige.

At the beginning of the speech, Posselt reminded the victims of the covid-19, but also the tornado rampage in southern Moravia and the tragic floods in western Germany. Together with the participants of the congress, he honored the memory of the dead. Herman also expressed his condolences to the rampage of the element in western Germany.

VIDEO: Minister Herman said what he had before the Sudeten Germans, Klimeš says.