German president Frank Walter Steinmeier has asked Poland’s forgiveness for Nazi “tyranny” and acknowledged the “German crime” of the second World War, which began 80 years ago.
He was attending a ceremony early on Sunday morning in the Polish city of Wielun where the first German offensive, at 4.34am on September 1st, 1939, destroyed much of the city and killed 1,200 people.
Hours later, in a notorious piece of fake news, Adolf Hitler announced that Poland had attacked Germany first and that he had ordered a retaliation. The time he gave – 5.45am – was as incorrect as the aggressor behind the first attack: not Poles but SS agents, provocateurs camouflaged as Polish partisans.
That delivered the pretext for starting six years of war in Europe which in the end cost 60 million lives and left swathes of the continent in ruins.
This year’s anniversary has been overshadowed by renewed demands for reparations by Poland’s national conservative government. Instead of answering those requests, Mr Steinmeier acknowledged Germany’s historical guilt and its “desire to annihilate”.
“I bow my head before the Polish victims of Germany’s tyranny and I ask forgiveness,” said Mr Steinmeier, speaking in German and Polish. He suggested Germany’s responsibility today – because of its size and strength in Europe – was to do more for the continent.
“We have to contribute more for the security of Europe ... the prosperity of Europe and also, we need to listen more for the unity of Europe.”
He lit a candle and observed a minute’s silence for the war dead alongside his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, who described the Nazi attack on Wielun – ahead of its occupation of Poland – as “an act of barbarity”.
“Wielun would show what kind of war it would be: a total war, a war without rules, a destructive war,” said Mr Duda, warning of renewed “imperialist tendencies in Europe”, in particular from Russia.
Poland suffered some of the worst losses of the war including occupation, almost total destruction of many of its cities and the murder of about six million people, including its cultural and political elite, in a concerted effort to annihilate a culture Nazis deemed “inferior”.
The Polish president presented a long list of German crimes on Polish soil, from the occupation to the extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, that had “humiliated” the Polish people.
Compensation
On Sunday morning in Westerplatte, Gdansk, where the conflict began, Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki picked up on the material, spiritual, and economic losses suffered by Poland in the war.
“We have to demand the truth, we have to demand compensation,” said Mr Morawiecki. His ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has revived calls for compensation, saying previous agreements from the Cold War era – and again in 1990 – are not the final word on the matter.
Polish opposition parties and critics accuse PiS of promoting an emotional, nationalist agenda and fanning anti-German sentiment for political gain in autumn elections due on October 13th.
Later on Sunday, leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel and US vice-president Mike Pence gathered for a memorial service in the Polish capital, Warsaw. Mr Pence – a last-minute replacement for US president Donald Trump – said the second World War opened a five-decade era of “untold suffering and death”.
“The Polish people never lost hope, they never gave in to despair, and they never let go of their thousand-year history,” said Mr Pence at a gathering of around 30 heads of state and government.
“In the years that followed this day 80 years ago, their light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
