Germany · 50 years of the Kniefall von Warschau anniversary

Willy Brandt had been Federal Chancellor since 1969 and pursued rapprochement with the states of Central and Eastern Europe through his Ostpolitik. Before that, the SPD politician had lived in exile during the National Socialist regime. After the war, he was, among other things, Governing Mayor of West Berlin and Federal Foreign Minister. His policy was intended to make the consequences of the division of Germany more manageable politically and to redefine relations with Germany’s eastern neighbours.

Brandt’s visit to Warsaw (Warschau) on 7 December 1970 was primarily intended for the signing of the Warsaw Treaty (Warschauer Vertrag). In it, the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and the People’s Republic of Poland (Volksrepublik Polen) committed themselves to non-violence and confirmed the existing border along the Oder and Neisse rivers. The treaty was controversial domestically, but formed a basis for further rapprochement between the two countries.

The monument at which Brandt laid a wreath had been erected in 1948 based on a design by the sculptor Nathan Rapoport. It commemorates Jewish resistance against the German occupiers. Hundreds of thousands of Jews had been crowded together under catastrophic conditions in the sealed-off Warsaw Ghetto. After mass deportations to the Treblinka extermination camp began in 1942, Jewish resistance groups put up armed resistance in spring 1943 against the final clearance of the ghetto. The German units crushed the uprising, systematically destroyed the district and murdered or deported its remaining inhabitants.

Brandt’s act of kneeling had not been announced. The wordless gesture was initially received in different ways, but subsequently developed into an enduring image in the memory of post-war German history. It combined an acknowledgment of German responsibility for the crimes of National Socialism with the political effort to reach an understanding with Poland. Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971, particularly for his policy of détente.

The issue marking the anniversary therefore did not merely take up a personal gesture. It also commemorated the Holocaust, Jewish resistance and the difficult process of German-Polish reconciliation. The occasion was thus also suited to indicating the role that public remembrance can play in relations between European states.