>From today's (July 3) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ( www.faz.com )
PDS Condemns Construction of Wall, But Falls Short of Apology
By Johannes Leithäuser
BERLIN. The executive of the Party of Democratic Socialism on Monday condemned the construction of the Berlin Wall and closure of East Germany's borders nearly 40 years ago as an injustice.
The declaration by the successor party to East Germany's communist Socialist Unity Party (SED) fell short of an outright apology demanded by other political parties and instead tried to explain the circumstances that led to the Wall's being built.
The PDS chairwoman, Gabi Zimmer, said the party had to find a wording with which "we can garner trust in the PDS within the party itself and in the public."
Only two members of the executive supported an amendment proposed by Helmut Holter, the labor minister in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, that would have included asking the victims for forgiveness.
The PDS executive spent nearly four hours discussing the wording of the declaration. Among those criticizing it were Sarah Wagenknecht, the representative of the extreme left Communist Platform, and the honorary PDS chairman, former East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow.
Ms. Zimmer pointed out that the majority of the executive's members thought the declaration went further than an apology could have done. She said the request for an apology for SED injustices was nothing but tactical maneuvering by the other parties because "by apologizing the PDS would accept the allegations that it is merely continuing in the SED's footsteps -- even more so if it did not."
The party executive's declaration refers to a statement by the historical commission of the PDS that also was released on Monday. The statement explains the building of the Wall with the "logic and sequence of developments in world politics at the time." The construction of the Wall was an answer to the looming "exodus from East Germany," the commission says.
These references seem, in effect, to absolve the SED leadership at the time of its responsibility and reduce the accusations simply to its failure to "condemn the Wall after its construction."
The executive's declaration goes on to say that "there is no avoiding the bitter insight that state socialism was close to collapse when the Wall was built and that there was no concept how to overcome it."
The latter part of the PDS declaration deals with the victims of the Wall: "No ideal and no higher purpose can ever serve as a political justification for the injustices caused by the Wall, for the systematic curtailment of the freedom of movement and for the dangers caused to liberty as well as life and limb of those who still tried to leave the country," it says.