Polish President Andrzej Duda’s chief of staff, Krzysztof Szczerski, the head of the office of the German president, Stephan Steinlein, and the German ambassador in Warsaw, Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, on Monday laid wreaths at the same monument, as well as at the nearby memorial to Willy Brandt, and the monument to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
'Search for gestures of reconciliation'
Earlier in the day, Szczerski played host to German politicians at the Belvedere Palace. In a statement for the Polish Press Agency, he said: “This commemoration shows that, despite the current tension surrounding the European debate, the presidents of Poland and Germany are willing to highlight today’s anniversary, ascribing a significant role to the search for gestures of reconciliation, which was manifested by Willy Brandt’s visit.”
Szczerski added that initially the 50th anniversary of Brandt’s historic gesture was to have been commemorated jointly by the Polish and German presidents, Andrzej Duda and Frank Walter-Steinmeier. Those plans were changed because of the pandemic.
Brandt came to Poland on December 7, 1970, to sign a treaty which paved the way for normalizing Polish-German relations. In it, Germany accepted the Polish border along the Odra and Nysa rivers, and relinquished all territorial claims to Poland. Two years later, Poland and Germany renewed their diplomatic relations.
The Polish president’s office said on its website that Brandt’s visit came 25 years after the end of World War II, a conflict that was unleashed by Germany with an attack on Poland and which inflicted on Poles incalculable suffering during years of cruel occupation.
'Immensely important'
“Given these circumstances, Chancellor Willy Brandt’s gesture said something immensely important. We saw in this iconic sign – and continue to see in our collective memory – an asking for forgiveness for the tragedy of World War II and for the German guilt. Brandt knelt before the victims of German crimes, the six million… citizens of the Polish Republic, three million of whom were Polish Jews. As he later wrote in his memoirs: ‘Staring into the abyss of history, bearing the burden of the murdered millions, I did what people tend to do when they are lost for words’,” the Polish president’s office said.
Gerhard Gnauck writes in German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that while German historians now refer to Brandt’s gesture as “wonderful” and “perhaps one of the most important in history”, in 1970 most citizens of West Germany viewed Brandt’s kneeling down at a Warsaw monument as an “exaggerated gesture”.
(mk/pk)