Refugees row
January 5, 2010
Steinbach's candidacy had triggered a row among members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet. The 66-year-old had clashed with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle who opposed her appointment to the board of the Federal Foundation for Flight, Expulsion and Reconciliation.
Westerwelle feared Steinbach's appointment could strain Germany's relations with its eastern neighbors, in particular Poland. Steinbach remains unpopular there because of her forceful backing of the interests of German World War II refugees.
As a member of the parliament for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (CDU), Steinbach once voted against recognising Germany's current border with Poland.
"Embarrassing and unworthy of a democracy"
But on Tuesday, the 66-year-old head of the Federation of Expellees (BdV) said on Tuesday she would drop her bid if the cabinet gave up its power to veto appointees.
"The political debate in recent months over the BdV's decision to appoint its president to the museum board is without parallel, embarrassing and unworthy of a democracy," Steinbach said in a statement.
"The character of a nation shows itself in the way it treats the victims of wars and its dead," she added. "I want to find a reasonable solution and urge the government to cooperate."
Steinbach's BdV has been the main driving force behind the creation of a controversial museum dedicated mainly to the fate of the 15 million Germans forced to leave eastern Europe after 1945.
Politicians split
Germany's major political parties have been divided in their reaction to Steinbach's withdrawal.
“I will of course look at every proposal that is fair, realistic and constructive,”Foreign Minister Westerwelle told German radio station Deutschlandfunk. He said the aim was only to ensure “that relations between Germany and Poland were not damaged.”
But the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's CDU, backed Steinbach.
"Now we have the chance to find a new constitution for the Foundation," Hans-Peter Friedrich, head of the CSU's national committee said.
But opposition parties called on the government to stick to the constitution that the previous German government had agreed on.
Green party leader Renate Kuenast called Steinbach's proposal "absolutely unacceptable," and demanded that Chancellor Angela Merkel intervene.
bk/KNA/dpa
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar