Bernd Posselt (born 4 June 1956) is a German

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

, who served as a

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

from 1994 to 2014, representing the

Christian Social Union in Bavaria The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (German: , CSU) is a Christian-democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic ...

(CSU) and the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian-democratic, conservative, and liberal-conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Founded by primarily ...

(EPP). He is currently a member of the executive board of the CSU.

Personal and professional background

Posselt was born in Pforzheim,

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

as a son of expellees. He was a

from 1994 to 2014.Newspaper article on Bernd Posselt
/ref> In 1998 he became president of the ''Paneuropa-Union Deutschland'', the German branch of the International Paneuropean Union.

Political and community activities

Posselt is the leading German advocate of the rights of those Germans whose ancestors lived in the

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...

area of

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

as well as

Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The ...

and who were expelled by the

Potsdam conference The Potsdam Conference (german: Potsdamer Konferenz) was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris P ...

and the governments in Central and Eastern Europe after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. His main goal - and the principal aim of the

Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft The Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft ( en, Sudeten German Homeland Association) is an organization representing Sudeten German expellees and refugees from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Most of them were forcibly expelled and deported to wes ...

that he has led since 2000 - is to revoke the so-called

Beneš decrees The Beneš decrees, sk, Dekréty prezidenta republiky) and the Constitutional Decrees of the President of the Republic ( cz, Ústavní dekrety presidenta republiky, sk, Ústavné dekréty prezidenta republiky) were a series of laws drafted by t ...

, as well as other acts of the post-war expulsions that were meant to punish the German population in the Sudetenland as a whole for its prevailing support of

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

. Posselt is respected in the Sudeten German community and in his home state of

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

. The

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Bavarian government has often supported the Sudeten German community, and was among those demanding that the Czech Republic should repeal the Beneš decrees before being allowed into

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Posselt, Bernd 1956 births Living people Politicians from Munich MEPs for Germany 2004–2009 Christian Social Union in Bavaria MEPs MEPs for Germany 1999–2004 MEPs for Germany 2009–2014 Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany