Klaus Bachmann

Klaus Bachmann (born 1963, Bruchsal), journalist, writer, scholar, historian and political scientist, author of many books and writings on German, Austrian and Polish culture, history and politics, as well as on the European Union, and on German-Polish and Polish-Ukrainian relations.

Education

He was born in Bruchsal, the largest city in the district of Karlsruhe. He studied history, political science and Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, and Serbo-Croatian) at the universities in Heidelberg, Vienna and Krakow. During his studies he also served as a town councillor in his hometown.

Career as a Journalist

In 1988, Bachmann settled in Poland and began to write on a regular basis for various Austrian and German newspapers and weeklies (Die Presse, Falter, Die Tageszeitung), reporting on the revolutionary and evolutionary political, economic, social and cultural changes in the post-Soviet bloc countries. Since 1989, he worked as the accredited foreign correspondent based in Poland, and also from 1992, in Kiev, Minsk and Vilnius. During the mid-90s he wrote for a Berlin daily, Der Tagesspiegel, for Die Stuttgarter Zeitung, Die Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, and also for Polish mainstream newspapers and weeklies (Rzeczpospolita, Polityka, and Tygodnik Powszechny).

Academic career

In 2000, Bachmann presented and successfully defended his doctoral thesis on a period of political regional instability in Austro-Hungarian Galicia between 1907 and 1914, thereby completing his PhD degree at the University of Warsaw. In his dissertation Bachmann studied certain political plots and battles in Austro-Hungarian Galicia in 1907–1914, and explored the attempts at the establishment of the Polish and Ukrainian national movement in that region. He also described the political tensions in Vienna generated through conflicts of interests between Germany and Russia. This study is not only a comprehensive inquiry into the Polish and Ukrainian national movement in the early 20th century, but also an in-depth investigation into the underlying causes of the First World War and the demise of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The work was published in Austria and Germany as Ein Herd der Feindschaft gegen Russland Galizien als Krisenherd in den Beziehungen der Donaumonarchie mit Russland (1907–1914). Dissertation. ("A Hotbed of Hostility towards Russia. Galicia as a Flashpoint in Relations between Austria-Hungary and Russia (1907–1914). PhD").^[1] In 2001, Bachmann moved to Brussels where he worked for three years as a correspondent for German and Austrian newspapers in the Benelux countries.

In 2004, he returned to Poland and wrote a postdoctoral thesis: The Convention on the Future of Europe. Deliberative Democracy as a Method of Legitimizing Authority in a Multilevel Political System,^[2] which earned him a Doctorus Habilitatus degree at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wroclaw. In his thesis, Bachmann discussed, among other things, the democratic deficit occurring in the EU which manifests itself by the fact that its citizens cannot associate themselves with the Union and its structures, and hardly identify themselves with their own representatives in the European Parliament, thus relinquishing their right to exercise any influence on the EU policies. Bachmann also raised the issue whether the EU has the legitimacy to govern European people in the absence of what he calls the demos (people in the form of single or homogenous population, such as the population of an ancient Greek state), by virtue of which and for the benefit of which the EU would be entitled to govern. Bachmann argues that because the European Union does not constitute a single people or population but rather a sort of artificial entity without the demos, it is easy to call its statehood into question. Bachmann presented two individual views on this matter. As there is no European demos, Bachmann contends, the Union should limit its political ambitions and stop expanding the powers of its international institutions. To this end all the EU's legitimacy should be based on the authorities of the Member States. He also vindicates a view that the existence of the demos is not a requirement, but the outcome of such international institutions being established.

Subsequently, he was appointed Chair of Political Science at the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies at the University of Wroclaw.

Between 2000 and 2001, and again since 2005, he was a member of the Governing Board of the Stefan Batory Foundation based in Warsaw.^[3]

In 2006, Bachmann became associate professor at the Institute of Political Science at the School of Social Psychology in Warsaw. He also lectures at the Institute for International Studies at the University of Wroclaw. His articles have been published in Polish mainstream weeklies (Polityka) and dailies (Gazeta Wyborcza), and also in diverse Austrian, German and Swiss newspapers. In 2004, he delivered lectures as a visiting professor at the Institute of East European History, University of Vienna (on recent history of Poland) and the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) at the University of Bordeaux (2008). He pursued scholarly research at the People's University of China (Renmin) in Beijing in 2007 and at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington,^[4] in 2007. He also conducted research at the Faculty of Law at Stellenbosch University (South Africa, 2009). He is a member of the Central European International Studies Association (CEISA), the European Studies Association (EUSA), and a Fellow and Associate of the Center for International Relations based in Warsaw. He is also the Principal Officer of the Foundation for European Studies (FEPS).^[5] In December 2014, he was awarded a full tenured professorship by Polish President Bronisław Komorowski ^[6]

Commentary

Klaus Bachmann's views and insightful commentary on social and political affairs are likely to influence the intellectual elite and the public. His continued insistence on the unification rather than expansion of Europe has helped to accept and change the aspect of Poland's entry into the European Union.^[7] Just as E. M. Forster attempted to improve the troubled relationship between Germany and England (Howards End (1910), "Only connect"), and that between England and India (A Passage to India (1924), Bachmann is working arduously to build links between erstwhile redoubtable enemies. Once branded as a "Polonized German",^[8] he has adopted the role as the leading exponent of the "thaw" in German-Polish relations,^[9] working hard to challenge and dispel the negative national stereotypes perpetuated throughout centuries.^[10] The accolades Bachmann is receiving from Pro-Europeans, the Polish governing party supporters and the political establishment are effectivelly tempered with scathing criticisms offered by his detractors from Salon24.pl^[11] and Germanophobes from the Eurosceptical and xenophobic daily Nasz Dziennik, Radio Maryja^[12] and Fronda.pl.^[13] He has repeatedly expressed his opposition to the ideas and policies of the Law and Justice Party. Following the death of the Polish President in Smolensk (Russia), he was reported to say: [Lech Kaczynski] "wasn't very popular and it was quite obvious that he would lose the upcoming elections." (...) "The open question is what will Kaczynski's party and his brother do; he might decide to run for president himself, he might also consider to withdraw from politics at all because he had a very very close link to his brother and I can't imagine how much shocked he must be.^[14] "

Prior to the enactment of the Act on Designer Drugs on 8 October 2010, Klaus Bachmann eloquently expressed his opinion on the Polish conventional morality and popular eagerness to prohibit drugs, abortion and prostitution, which often serves as a cover for collective hypocrisy. He argued that “it is easier to impose a ban and pretend that it is complied with rather than face real problems without enacting a ban. It is so because we live in a country where law is used by the majority to impose its morality on minorities even where deviations from that morality do not harm anyone”.^[15]

On 30 January 2011, Bachmann published a thought-provoking article in Gazeta Wyborcza, It is not just the Emperor! The entire aristocracy is naked!, in which he supported Andrzej Dybczynski, a scholar, in expressing fair but damaging criticism of academic personal animosities, rampant corruption, widespread nepotism and pococurantism prevalent at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. Bachmann argued: “This University employs people who have known each other for 20, 30 or even 40 years. [These people] are related by blood or family ties, they marry and divorce each other. Here, nepotism, immobility and patronage of “your own [proteges]” have resulted in the founding of a “family” [group of interests] where it is impossible to establish anyone's paternity or maternity. Thus “absolute principalities” and “politbureaus” have proliferated which make crucial decisions behind the scenes and which know the poll results long before the faculty meet to vote.”

According to Bachmann, the University of Wroclaw, its bodies and structures, must be reformed radically so that it may meet the EU standards, enhance its academic and financial transparency, operate externally, compare and compete with international academic community successfully. However, such reforms must be enacted by the government, as the governing bodies of the University are incapable of implementing any genuine and wide-ranging changes. Bachmann's ways of limiting, reducing or eliminating favouritism and nepotism at Polish universities are suggested in his provocative article "Can Polish universities cope with nepotism?" where he expresses his damaging opinion on a new Polish Law on Higher Education and proposes that Polish universities should compete with each other nationally and internationally in order to boost their academic performance.

Bachmann's activities as a journalist, academician, political commentator and lampoonist, his exquisitely sensitive sense of humour and irony ("Wroclaw deserves to have access to the sea"),^[16][17] his critical acumen and judicious promotion of friendship and cooperation among Europeans, have endeared him to his Austrian, German, Polish and Ukrainian sympathizers and readers.

He lives in Wroclaw (Poland) and teaches at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw.^[18]

Selected bibliography

• Bachmann, Klaus; Sparrow-Botero, Thomas and Lambertz, Peter: When Justice Meets Politics. Independence and Autonomy of Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals. Peter Lang International: New York, Oxford, Frankfurt, Zürich 2013.
• Bachmann Klaus: Ein Herd der Feindschaft gegen Russland. Galizien als Krisenherd in den Beziehungen der Donaumonarchie mit Russland (1907–1914). Diss. 2001. Oldenbourg Verlag. ISBN 3-486-56538-9, 292 pp.^[19]
• Bachmann Klaus: Polens Uhren gehen anders 2001. Hohenheim Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89850-030-2, 280pp.^[20]
• Bachmann Klaus: Konwent o przyszłosci Europy: demokracja deliberatywna jako metoda legitymizacji wladzy w wieloplaszczyznowym systemie politycznym Orbis Linguarum No. 28, 2004. Wroclaw: Atut, ISBN 83-89247-72-0, 267pp.^[2]
• Bachmann Klaus: Dlugi cien Rzeszy 2005. Wroclaw: Atut, ISBN 83-7432-063-X, 176 pp.^[21]
• Bachmann Klaus, Buras Piotr & Plociennik Sebastian: Republika bez gorsetu 2005, Wroclaw: Atut, Catalogue No. 71551, 162pp.^[22]
• Bachmann Klaus, Fleischer Michael, Olszewski Leon et al. Rocznik Centrum Studiow Niemieckich i Europejskich im. Willy Brandta Uniwersytetu Wroclawskiego 2005, Wroclaw: University of Wroclaw Publishing House, ISBN 978-83-229-2722-9.^[23]
• Bachmann Klaus: Polska kaczka w europejskim stawie. Polskie szanse i wyzwania po przystapieniu do UE2006, Warsaw: WAIP, ISBN 978-83-60501-64-1, 246pp^[24]
• Bachmann Klaus & Buras Piotr: Niemcy jako panstwo cywilne. Studia nad niemiecka polityka zagraniczna 2006. Wroclaw: Atut, Catalogue No. 76645, 164pp.^[25]
• Bachmann Klaus: Repression, Protest, Toleranz. Wertewandel und Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Polen nach 1956 2010. Wroclaw: Atut, ISBN 978-3-86276-004-6, 364 pp.^[26]
• Bachmann Klaus: "Vergeltung, Strafe, Amnestie. Eine vergleichende Studie zu Kollaboration und ihrer Aufarbeitung in Belgien, den Niederlanden und Polen." Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt, Wien, Oxford, New York 2011

• Other selected writings and articles by this author: Die Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus den Gebieten des heutigen Polen im Spiegel der Geschichtsschreibung und der öffentlichen Meinung, TRANSODRA 12/13, September 1996, S. 48 – 63;^[27] Poland and Austria;^[28] The Cunning of Reason;^[29] Polish Populists;^[30] Europe on the Move: the Impact of Eastern Enlargement on the European Union.^[31]

For Bachmann's selected articles in Polish newspapers go to: Polska The Times ("Regional Autonomy May Arrest the Development"),^[32] Gazeta Wyborcza ("Klaus Bachmann Archives"),^[33] ("Bachmann's Election Slogan: Hurrah for the Lithuanian Wroclaw!"),^[34] ("It Would Not Be Suitable for Wroclaw to Enter into a Union with Klaipėda,^[16] ("Land for the Germans, Employment for the Poles"),^[35] ("The Duisburg Love Parade: Looking for a Scapegoat"),^[36] Super Express ("[The German] Expellees Are Bound to Fade Into Insignificance"),^[37] ("He Who Likes Poland Does Not Like Erika Steinbach"),^[38] and Polityka (Klaus Bachmann Archives).^[39]

References