Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel has not yet picked the board for a controversial museum, reported a German government spokesman, amid fears in Poland that refugee leader Erika Steinbach would be placed on the panel.

Steinbach, 65, is viewed with revulsion by many Poles because of her advocacy for ethnic Germans expelled from Polish soil between 1945-1947.

A Warsaw newspaper, Dziennik, said Polish diplomats had seen signs that Merkel would appoint Steinbach, president of the Expellees Federation of Germany, to the board of a planned memorial museum in Berlin. The issue is a flashpoint in the neighbours' relations.

Ulrich Wilhelm, the German government spokesman, said at a news conference: "The friendship, the partnership with Poland is a very important objective for the federal government," adding this had "a very high value."

Wilhelm said the federally funded memorial would not attempt to reinterpret the history of World War II and its aftermath. He said Germany admitted it was to blame for starting the war and many of its consequences.

He added that Germany's 1939 attack on Poland, the start of the war, had "plunged Europe into unfathomable suffering."

Wilhelm said procedures to select the memorial board had not even begun. A state minister, Bernd Neumann, who is a Merkel aide, would meet with relevant organizations to hear their nominations. Germany's cabinet would then select the members.

Wilhelm said he would not speculate on who might be appointed.

The memorial is to expected to be a museum and document centre on one floor of a Berlin office building, near the expellees' office.

Poles have been outraged at Steinbach's criticism of their nation and her focus on the sufferings of Germans rather than victims of the Nazis. In the last few years, the expulsions have been the subject of a rash of German TV dramas.

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Poland's special representative for relations with Germany, reportedly said Sunday that Poland would boycott some events with Germany this year if Steinbach were placed on the board.

After initially opposing the memorial outright, Poland has agreed to advise Germany during its creation.

Steinbach is a member of the German parliament for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). (dpa)