Merkel supports memorial to expelled Germans

Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her support Saturday for a memorial to Germans forced to relocate from eastern Europe after World War II, but said it did not mean Germany was seeking to diminish responsibility for starting the war.

After the Third Reich collapsed in 1945 and borders were moved westward, millions of ethnic Germans in Poland, then-Czechoslovakia and elsewhere were viewed as traitors and were expelled or fled.

Backed by the German government, a group called the Federation of Expellees is moving ahead with plans for a memorial in Berlin for those dispossessed, which will also include information on expulsions of other people throughout history.

Merkel told the group at its annual meeting that the planned Center against Expulsions was an appropriate way to commemorate the expellees' plight.

"The history of flight and expulsions affects us all," she told several hundred members of the federation. "It is a part of our national identity and part of our shared cultural memory."

She sought to allay fears from Poland and elsewhere that such a memorial might be rewriting history, saying that part of paying tribute to the expellees was remembering what caused their situation.

"We will not forget: This was a direct consequence of the German war and the Nazi tyranny," she said. "Yes, we admit out responsibility for the darkest chapter in Germany's history — there is no reinterpretation of history."

The center is scheduled to open by 2013.