A defeat for the prince
As of 2:52 p.m
Hohenzollern Castle in Baden-Württemberg
Quelle: Getty Images
To the very end, the head of the House of Hohenzollern tried, in an amicable agreement with Berlin, Brandenburg and the federal government, to regain property expropriated by the Soviets. Now the court has to decide. Anti-noble resentment has once again prevailed.
Eit was all in vain. Georg Friedrich Prince of Prussia, head of the House of Hohenzollern, has done everything in the last two years to amicably obtain compensation of no more than a ridiculous 1.4 million euros for the 60 of the 1945-1949 in the then repossess family property expropriated in the Soviet zone of occupation. And he had an important ally in the form of a sensible SPD politician, the Brandenburg Minister of Finance, Katrin Lange.
The prince has shown himself open to the historical processing of his clan’s involvement in Nazi history, he has commissioned the leading historian on this subject, Lothar Machtan from the left-wing University of Bremen, with a study, he has offered to visit Cecilienhof Castle, the residence of the last crown prince of Prussia, who so unhappily pandered to the Hitler mob to equip an exhibition on this complex with loans from his private collection, in short he showed more understanding for the objections of his opponents than any member of the house Hohenzollern before him – in vain.
There is such an insurmountable soupçon in this country to all that is noble that George Frederick of Prussia has now suffered a crushing defeat. Because in the Hohenzollern conflict, which has been wandering through the media for years as the sometimes bitter Hohenzollern debate, legal authorities are now to decide. The public sector rejects conciliation negotiations. Want to say, reject in this case, well known to the office, the ladies and gentlemen Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture (Greens), Daniel Wesener (Berlin Finance Senator, Greens), Klaus Lederer (Berlin Culture Senator, Left Party) and Manja Schüle (Brandenburg Minister of Culture, SPD). ). So who cares?
And who is also surprised when the ministerial bureaucracy of the Greens shouts that it is finally “not the back room” anymore, but the court that must decide – precisely taking into account the question of whether the House of Hohenzollern, especially in whether his boss at the time, Crown Prince Wilhelm, “considerably encouraged” National Socialism or not. This is a question which, at least by historians, has not yet been able to be decided unequivocally.
A sorry affair
Not least because the wording is vague and the historical situation is ambiguous. Because Wilhelm, anyway more of a dandy and hedonistic bon vivant than a political mind, wanted to, but the Nazis didn’t like him. In this respect, the “back room”, in which the fiction of clarity is not decisive, but good will, a sense of atmosphere, soft skills, in short what is understood by civil manners, would of course be much more suitable than a forensic forum in which others Game rules apply.
It was not meant to be. This country, in which the ideologues, who always know exactly what is and should be, sets the tone, is not yet ripe for negotiating conflicts with the once ruling class, even more than 100 years after the fall of the monarchy. It’s not surprising, as you know your Pappenheimer. But it’s sad.
Perhaps the politicians are at least big enough to bring about the exhibition suggested by the prince, so that wider sections of the population can make sense of this cause, which can always claim a larger forum than a back room or a courtroom. That would be a worthy outcome of this tiresome affair.