Relations between Warsaw and Berlin deteriorate as Polish elections near

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The writer directs the Center on the US and Europe at the Brookings Institution

The Polish elections this Sunday are hugely important for the future of democracy in Poland, for European security and for Ukraine. But they will also be determinative for a key bilateral relationship within Europe: that between Poland and Germany. 

The relationship between the neighbours is the worst it has been since 1989. The ultraconservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, now seeking a third term, bears by far the most responsibility for this. But the Germans are by no means without blame.

Warsaw and Berlin are fighting about two big topics: the consequences of the past, and the future of the continent. And, as always in Europe, the toxic groundwater of unresolved historic grievances is never far from the surface.

Last year, Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s government presented a demand for €1.3tn (roughly a third of Germany’s total gross domestic product in 2022) in reparations from Berlin. Hitler’s pact with Stalin to destroy the sovereign Polish nation, and the Luftwaffe attempt to obliterate Warsaw, testify to Nazi Germany’s hatred for its eastern neighbour where the Third Reich committed some of its worst atrocities. There was industrial-scale murder in the death camps, 5mn Poles (of whom 3mn were Jewish) were killed and 1.5mn forced into slave labour.

Yet Warsaw’s case is questionable under international law. After Germany’s defeat, the principal Allies (the US, UK and Russia) decreed that reparations claims arising out of eastern Europe would be made to the Soviet Union, which would allocate them. Poland received little but was ceded more than 40,000 square miles of prewar eastern German territory. Following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR in 1991, reparations were not discussed between a reunified Germany and a newly sovereign Poland aspiring to swift entry to Nato and the EU. Poland has since repeated a 1970 renunciation of claims.

There are some more proximate reasons why the PiS government is now demanding recompense from Berlin. The EU (backed by Germany) is blocking €35bn in Covid recovery funds for Warsaw until it rolls back efforts to undermine judicial independence. 

Above all, PiS is relentlessly scapegoating Germany in its election campaign with half-truths, lies and vitriol to deflect attention from its slipping poll lead and the polarisation it has inflicted on Polish society. Its de facto head, Jarosław Kaczyński, has called Donald Tusk, leader of the liberal right-of-centre opposition party Civic Platform, a German agent, and accused Berlin of wanting to turn the EU into a “Fourth Reich”. PiS has captured large swaths of the state, politicised the armed forces, tried to ban abortion and turned state-funded media into propaganda organs. It is harassing its opponents and civil society and violating basic EU rules.

Poland does, however, have legitimate grievances and concerns. The trauma of war and near destruction that is seared into national consciousness is met with a lack of empathy by many Germans. Few in Germany know that the striking workers of Solidarność paved the way for their own country’s reunification; fewer still are grateful. The Poles warned of German dependence on Russian energy and criticised its low defence spending. In return, the Germans condescended to them, or accused them of fear-mongering and hysteria. Yet Warsaw has taken in nearly 1mn Ukrainian refugees and is set to spend 3 per cent of its GDP on defence.

Small wonder, then, that Poles — even as they acknowledge the Zeitenwende (or turning point) in Berlin unleashed by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine — still wonder whether they can trust Germany. Many Poles consider PiS’s demand for reparations to be a cynical deflection. Yet less legalism and more respect, recognition and political generosity from Berlin would do much. Germany permanently shutting down the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia could be a powerful gesture — as would a decisive push for Ukrainian success.

In truth, the economies of Germany and Poland are deeply intertwined, and the relationship between their societies far closer than the stereotypes suggest. The two nations’ common interests, especially in wartime, are far greater than their differences.

As for those national stereotypes, the Polish philosopher and historian Leszek Kołakowski wrote that “in judging others we involuntarily reveal our own patterns of perception, and thus our own vices and virtues”. Therein lies a lesson for Warsaw, but also for Berlin.