Herbert Czaja

Herbert Czaja Helmut ( born November 5, 1914 in Teschen, † April 18, 1997 in Stuttgart ) was a German politician of the CDU. He was 1970-1994 President of the Federation of displaced persons.

Education and work

After leaving school at the German State High School in Bielsko Czaja graduated from 1933 to 1938 studying German literature, history and philosophy in Kraków and Vienna. He then worked as a teacher in higher education service and eventually worked as a research assistant at the University of Krakow. 1937/38, he was a member of the German Association for national pacification of Europe, who had been his former teacher, the well-known opponent of Hitler Senator Edward Pant founded. In Krakow took place in 1939 and his PhD. After the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in Poland, he refused to join the party. This led to the loss of his assistantship. From 1940 he worked as a high school teacher in Zakopane, and Przemysl. In 1942 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and seriously wounded on the Eastern Front.

After the expulsion, he was from 1946 in the Grammar school system in Stuttgart, most recently as teacher, works.

Family

Herbert Czaja was with Eva -Maria Reinhardt ( born November 29, 1926 in Stuttgart, † June 28, 2006 ibid ) married and had nine children. His eldest daughter, Christine, for many years Deputy Chairman of the homeland of the Upper Silesia, published 2003 biographical posts about him.

Party

Born into a Roman Catholic family, Czaja was since 1933 member of the German Christian People's Party Eduard Pants and engaged national political both in Krakow and Vienna in German student fraternities.

After the war, Czaja was a member of the Junge Union and the CDU. He was also one of the founders of the Union of expellees into the CDU, whose national chairman for North -Württemberg, he was in 1952.

Member of Parliament

From 1947 to 1953 Czaja was a member of the city council of Stuttgart.

From 1953 to 1990 Czaja was a member of the German Bundestag. From 1980 to 1990 he was chairman of the group of refugees and displaced persons in the CDU / CSU parliamentary group.

Herbert Czaja was drawn from the 2nd to the 9th term on the state list of Baden- Württemberg and in the 10th and 11th term as directly elected representative of the constituency Stuttgart II in the German Bundestag.

Czaja held in contrast to the large majority of the members of parliament of all parties, the reunification of Germany through the unification of West Germany and East Germany for not completed because the former German eastern territories were not included. He therefore agreed in the unification process several times against the majority of his own party from, among other things, against the joint resolution on the German -Polish border, to the settlement agreement and against the Two Plus Four Treaty.

In September 1990, he also tried jointly with other colleagues in our group to prevent the advice of the Unification Treaty in vain in the Bundestag by means of an application for a temporary injunction from the Federal Constitutional Court. The application was "manifestly unfounded" discarded as.

Even after the German reunification and leaving the Bundestag 1990 sat Czaja his unyielding stance continues, making even more radical demands. In his more than a thousand page book the way to the smallest Germany? he demanded as recently as 1996 a restoration of the German Empire in the borders of 1937, which "is the end ... must be not ". The political scientist Ernst- Otto Czempiel referred to him in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung then as a "conspiracy theorist " and " political wrong-way driver " for which " the concept of revisionism is much too tame ."

Social offices

Czaja was a founding member of the auxiliary Association of expellees in Stuttgart and also belonged to the circle Refugee Committee. He was co-founder of the displaced - cooperative new home and was a member of the board of the Ackermann-Gemeinde.

Since 1948, Czaja was elected member of the Central Committee of German Catholics ( ZdK ).

Herbert Czaja was since 1969, spokesman for the country club of the Upper Silesians and 1970-1994 President of the Federation of displaced persons. He took office at the time of the new Ostpolitik of the social-liberal coalition. Czaja was, inter alia, involved in it, to work on the German - Polish Textbook recommendations alternatives, which he published in a documentary in 1980.

In addition, he served from 1974 until his death in 1997 as Chairman of the Trustees of the Cultural Foundation of the German expellees.

Honors

Herbert Czaja received in 1968 the Distinguished Service Cross 1st class of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Grand Cross of Merit in 1973 and 1984, the Great Cross of Merit with Star, on 7 May 1988, the Medal of Merit of the State of Baden -Wuerttemberg. He was honored with the Prussian shield 1989. In 2002, the Dr. Herbert Czaja pathway was named after him in Stuttgart- Zuffenhausen.

Publications

  • Compensation with Eastern Europe. Attempt at a European peace order. Seewald, Stuttgart 1969.
  • Materials to the Oder-Neisse questions. A documentary on the legal situation in Germany and the Germans under international law and the Basic Law with special reference to areas east of the Oder and Neisse ( = series of the Cultural Foundation of the German expellees. Vol. 9). Cultural Foundation of German expellees, Bonn 1979 ( Annotated documentation).
  • Our moral duty. Life for Germany. Edited by Hartmut Koschyk. Langen Müller, Munich, 1989, ISBN 3-7844-2279-9 ( collection of speeches and essays ).
  • On the way to the smallest Germany? Lack of solidarity with the displaced. Marginalia to 50 years of Ostpolitik. Servant, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7820-0730-1.
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