President Andrzej Duda’s Chief of Staff Krzysztof Szczerski, and Head of the Office of German President Stephan Steinlein and the German Ambassador in Warsaw Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven will lay wreaths at the same monument, as well as at the nearby memorial to Willy Brandt, and the monument to the Warsaw Rising of 1944.
In the morning hours, Polish-German talks are scheduled at the Belvedere Palace of the Polish President.
President Duda wrote on his chancellery’s website that “Willy Brandt’s gesture was of great importance for Poles, for there are actions that prove to be icons.”
Referring to his kneeling at the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto monument, Willy Brandt wrote in his autobiography: “I did what people tend to do when they are lost for words.”
On December 7, 1970, Chancellor Brandt came to Poland to sign a treaty which paved the way for normalising Polish-German relations. In it, Germany accepted the Polish border along the Rivers Odra and Nysa, and relinquished all territorial claims to Poland. Two years later, Poland and Germany renewed their diplomatic relations. (mk)