The background:
The stifling 50s and 60s were marked by
- post-war worries, political uncertainty and abstinence,
- there was mistrust, retaliation – even hatred – towards those who perceived German culture and language as their own.
- later the first signs of recognition and the will to reform appeared on the horizon, visible in the broadcast series ‘50 Years of the History of the Eastern Cantons’ by BHF reporters Peter Thomas and Hubert Jenniges, which was a revelation to me.
Until then, my relationship with my ‘fatherland’ Belgium had been shaped purely by randomly overheard, mostly emotional snippets of conversation between adults in my environment. Yet. this summary of the first 50 years of our belonging to Belgium, excellently researched and presented by the two journalists, finally gave me, as a young student, a sober view of the events of the past 50 years.
At the same time, it opened up a perspective for my life in a Belgian future. Far from any feeling of inferiority, from which I had often suffered as a ‘sâle boche’ (dirty Kraut), I now looked forward with hope to a picture of the future sketched by the Fleming Leo Tindemans and the South Tyrolean Silvio Magnago at the beginning of the 1970s: a federal state of Belgium in which our identity as Belgians of German origin would be accepted, even respected.
Today, 50 years later, I look back with gratitude:
- on the pioneering work of these two journalists and their series of broadcasts
- the successful efforts of many politicians of all parties – certainly also fuelled by the latter – to create and steadily expand our autonomy in the second half of our affiliation to Belgium.
Diese Dankbarkeit kommt vor allem in der dritten Theaterszene zum Ausdruck, welche im Senat am 9. Januar 2020 aufgeführt wurde.
Alfons Velz
Mürringen
