Herbert Hupka
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Herbert Hupka (August 15, 1915 – August 24, 2006) was a German journalist and politician (CDU, formerly SPD).
Hupka was born in Diyatalawa, Sri Lanka, and raised in Ratibor, Upper Silesia. He was expelled from the Wehrmacht in 1944 because his mother was Jewish; she survived internment in Theresienstadt concentration camp. Following World War II their hometown became part of Poland and Hupka and his mother were subsequently expelled to West Germany.
The expellees' issues formed the kernel of his political activities. He was the chairman of the Landsmannschaft Schlesien from 1968 to 2000. He was also chairman of the Eastern German Culture Council and vice-chairman of the Federation of Expellees.
Hupka was a member of the Bundestag from 1969-1987 and president of the Landsmannschaft Schlesien from 1968-2000. He was also president of the Eastern German Culture Council (German: Ostdeutscher Kulturrat) and Vice-President of the Federation of Expellees (Bund der Vertriebenen).
Hupka had opposed the Ostpolitik initiated by Willy Brandt and carried on by further SPD or CDU-led administrations. These policies subscribed to the acceptance of the territorial changes that took place after the Second World War; this line explicitly denied all attempts to regain these territories, which had become parts of Poland. Herbert Hupka, on the other hand, spoke in favour of incorporating the territories into German state. His opinions, which were regarded as revanchist, made him unpopular not only with the left, as he opposed the recognition of the Oder-Neiße borderline. On 29. February 1972, Hupka crossed the floor from the Bundestag faction of the SPD to CDU/CSU faction. Nevertheless, in 1985 Helmut Kohl also refused to speak at the Landsmannschaft Schlesien's annual conference unless its theme, "Schlesien bleibt unser" ("Silesia remains ours"), was not changed. Hupka was one of the Landsmannschaft's members who refused to change the theme, thereby conflicting heavily with Kohl, leader of the CDU.
Hupka, once the target of Polish and Soviet communist propaganda, was later employed as an advisor by the local government of present-day Silesia and was awarded the title of a honorary citizen of Racibórz, the historic town of his youth. At the old age, Hupka partially gave up his former views and became a conditional supporter of the German-Polish rapprochment. Hupka died in Bonn.
