Anniversary: ​​Baerbock: “Poland’s security is Germany’s security”

84 years after the German invasion of Poland at the beginning of the Second World War, Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) recalled Germany’s responsibility for the security of Poland and other Eastern European countries. With a view to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, she said at a commemoration event in Berlin’s Tiergarten: “The security of Eastern Europe, the security of Poland is Germany’s security.”

The Second World War began with the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1945. Measured against the total population, Poland suffered more deaths during the almost six-year war than any other country. Five to six million Poles lost their lives – about one in six. The degree of destruction caused by the Nazi war of extermination was also comparatively high. The capital city of Warsaw was almost completely razed to the ground before the Wehrmacht retreated.

Baerbock: “This war was a war against humanity”

“This war was a war against human dignity. A war against humanity,” said Baerbock. Just as the wounds of this war against human dignity in Poland and other countries did not heal over generations, reconciliation also remains an eternal task.

In her commemorative speech, Baerbock also advocated the establishment of a documentation center to commemorate the complicated German-Polish history and the brutal German occupation during World War II. Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth presented a first concept for this on Tuesday together with the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. However, it will probably take years to come to fruition.