A Constitution By Any Other Name

Czech president says Lisbon Treaty project is over

The Czechs have hammered another nail into the coffin of the Lisbon treaty by declaring that ratification must stop.

Czech president Vaclav Klaus, who is supported by the country's largest political party, called the Irish referendum vote a "victory of freedom and reason" and said "ratification cannot continue".

His view was echoed in the Czech senate.

"Politicians have allowed the citizens to express their opinion only in a single EU country," Mr Klaus said.

"The Lisbon treaty project ended with the Irish voters' decision and its ratification cannot continue," he wrote on his own website, according to Czech news agency ČTK.

The resounding Irish no was a "victory of freedom and reason over artificial elitist projects and European bureaucracy," he said.

Přemysl Sobotka, Czech senate chairman, also said there was "no sense" continuing with ratification, according to the agency.

The Czech Republic, traditionally one of the more Euro-skeptic of the EU's 27 member states, is one of nine countries which have not yet ratified the treaty.

While little opposition to continued ratification has been seen yet among leaders of the other eight, efforts to keep the Lisbon Treaty alive in any form would be near impossible if another country joined Ireland in rejection.

Near impossible? In accordance with European Union rules, the EU Constitution Treaty of Lisbon is dead. Muerte. Mort. Tot. Mrtvý. Kaput.

A summit of EU leaders will look for possible solutions to the institutional crisis next week.

You betcha they will.

Busy throwing Israel under the bus and appeasing the Palis, shameless, disgraceful Condoleezza Rice was unavailable for comment.


Via The Telegraph

Poles to EU: Nope

Poles smudge EU agreement before the ink has even dried
A deal on Europe’s future, stitched together at last week’s bad-tempered summit, began to unravel yesterday after the intervention of the EU’s most unpredictable leader.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Polish Prime Minister, who sent his brother Lech, the President, to the summit, stunned Brussels by declaring his determination to renegotiate the compromise. The twins spent much of last week’s detailed negotiations on the phone to each other and Lech had said that his brother was content with the package. But Jaroslaw, who demanded extra voting power for Poland, insisted yesterday that the deal had not taken full account of Poland’s demands.

Now he wants a permanent mechanism that allows a minority of dissenting states to be able to delay EU decisions for up to two years. His latest outburst has alarmed EU leaders, who were hoping for a trouble-free passage to a final text in October and a signing ceremony in December. An Inter-Governmental Conference will open on July 23, with representatives from all 27 EU nations to write the EU reform treaty, which critics say will be a thinly disguised version of the failed EU constitution.

With general agreement on the contents, all seemed to be going smoothly until Jaroslaw Kaczynski, referring to the deal to delay new voting weights for each country, said: “We have to finally resolve this issue at the Inter-Governmental Conference.” The European Commission responded furiously. “This was clearly settled at the European Council last week,” a spokesman said. “A mandate is a mandate and a deal is a deal. Now it is time for IGC to finish its job.

The Dutch and le Froggies gave you a mandate two years ago; and that was to shove the EU constitution up your brain.

Portugal, which takes over the EU’s rotating presidency from Germany tomorrow, said: “There was a deal at the highest level and we hope that deal will be respected.” A German government spokesman added: “The outcome of the summit was unanimously backed and Poland agreed to it.”

Ahhh, the European Commission is furious with Poland. They got their jaws tight over Iran, too.

Expect an Up yours! to be sent from Warsaw to Brussels, perhaps via Berlin, in the near future. Then the EU/EC can send the Poles the tried and true s t e r n l y ... w o r d e d ... l e t t e r.
Then the Fwench - led by the ever-intrepid Koslings - can spring into action and surrender save the day.

Previously on JWF

Tweaking The Heinies

The stuffed shirts in der Fatherland motherland have their Windeln full.

Poland riles Germany with a lewd take on the motherland
A glossy magazine cover depicting a bare-breasted Angela Merkel suckling the nationalist twin rulers of Poland reignited tensions between Berlin and Warsaw days after a bad-tempered European summit nearly collapsed because of Polish resistance to a German blueprint on how to run the EU.

The last time Germany had a blueprint on how to run Europe . . . .

The right-wing Warsaw weekly magazine Wprost, which backs the conservative nationalist regime of the prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and his twin brother, the president, Lech Kaczynski, has the cover of its latest issue as a montage showing "a beaming chancellor Merkel as "Europe's stepmother" baring her breasts to nourish the infant Polish twins.

In an article in the magazine, a Polish government official reacted to the weekend summit in Brussels, at which Poland stood alone threatening to wreck a deal and won big concessions from Mrs Merkel, by arguing that Germany was treating its eastern neighbour "neo-colonially" and refusing to accept it as a European partner. He accused Mrs Merkel of "humiliating" Poland at the summit because she was "full of complexes herself".

There's more. Enjoy.

Note: I am a Heinie and therefore not offended by use of the term in the post's title. If you're a Heinie and are offended, grow up and develop a sense of humor. Ja?

EU Summit: View From The Czech Lands

Although he's an avowed Eurosceptic, President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, the most trusted political leader, is often 'misunderestimated' by international media and the renowned foreign leaders Jean-Pierre had hallucinatory delusional conversations with.

Such misunderestimations continue to be made because Klaus will sometimes be rather forceful with his opinions; and at other times will somewhat understate his position.

Czech president welcomes summit brake on EU super state
(PRAGUE) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus cautiously welcomed the outcome of the EU's summit on Sunday, saying that a brake had been put on moves towards creating a European super state.

"This train that was before heading ever faster in one direction has to some extent braked and slowed down and we can try to get it moving somewhere else. This is a great victory for which we can all be thankful," Klaus said in an interview on the Czech commercial broadcaster Prima.

Klaus added that it was "a victory for reason" that moves towards the creation of a European super state enshrined in the former constitution had been blocked.

But he cautioned that some basic formulations from that treaty, derailed by French and Dutch referendum rebuffs in 2005, had still found their way into the text of the new agreement about the future functioning of the EU hammered out by European leaders on Saturday.

"Of course, I still have some fears that some of the (summit) changes might be more cosmetic than fundamental," he said, adding that German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier had reportedly declared the summit a victory because the basis of the constitution had been saved.

Klaus, a former right-wing prime minister, founder of the Civic Democratic Party and admirer of former British premier Margaret Thatcher, said he had only had a chance to read the 66-page preliminary conclusions of the summit in English.

Because Klaus is a firm believer in the free-market economic model, he is branded a right-winger, [Nazi, wink, wink]. Someday, but obviously not today, the MSM will exercise some intellectual and journalistic integrity and admit that the Austrian corporal and his minions were avowed Socialists.

Klaus sidestepped a question of whether Czechs should vote in a referendum on the new agreement, cautioning that it would be difficult to boil down the summit's conclusion into one question to put to voters.

"I hope, however, that there will be a serious public discussion about this," he added.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said on Saturday that he did not think a referendum should be held on the new EU agreement, adding though that parliament would have to decide.

The new EU constitution treaty must be ratified by all 27 member states. Given the statement by Irish Premier Bertie Ahern that Ireland would hold a referendum and the outrage in Britain over Tony Blair's transition to French Poodle, methinks ye olde pig will first take flight.

The Dawn Compromise

Angela Merkel demonstrated her skills as a tough negotiator, as did Lech and Jaroslav Kaczynski.

Tony Blair turned into a French Poodle as Nicolas Sarkozy had no trouble out-smarting Blair.

The Czechs, Slovaks and Lithuanians subtly demonstrated that New Europe will be a force to be reckoned with.

But who really came out a winner from the EU's Brussels summit?

Europe's Marathon Talks Clinch a Deal
[....]

A showdown between Merkel and Kaczynski brought the summit to the brink of failure. Merkel heaped on the pressure by saying that she would launch treaty negotiations without Poland, but once a compromise deal was reached, she had to deal with other countries' resistance to what they felt had been too many concessions to Britain.

Once a deal was finally hammered out, all the heads of states pronounced themselves pleased. Polish President Lech Kaczynski praised the diplomatic skill and "solidarity" of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair. Sarkozy said he had worked hand in hand with Merkel and described the deal as "good news for Europe." He said it was a key achievement to have struck a deal with Poland. "After all, we didn't want to leave the biggest country in Eastern Europe behind."

The agreement is crucial for the EU. After the collapse of the constitutional project, following its rejection by France and the Netherlands in 2005, the bloc was caught in a state of paralysis. But Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel had been determined to revive the plans to streamline the EU when Berlin took over the presidency in January. She has spent the past six months trying to hammer out a deal for a slimmed down treaty that could be accepted by all 27 members. And she finally succeeded. The member states have agreed to an intergovernmental conference which will give the deal a legal framework. The treaty will then be ratified by the member states and should come into force by 2009.

Poland Wins Concessions

As expected, the biggest hurdles to overcome were Poland and Britain. Poland felt that its role in the future European decisions would be diminished while bigger countries, in particular Germany, would have a greater say under the new "double majority" voting system. Under the new system, decisions made by the European Council will no longer be made unanimously but rather by a combination of 55 percent of EU states, which have to represent at least 65 percent of the total EU population.

In the run up to the summit Poland's undiplomatic rhetoric, including its repeated references to the Nazi occupation during World War II, shocked and enraged many EU leaders. Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said Poland's population would have been much bigger than its current 38 million if it weren't for the fact that millions of Poles died during the war.

The compromise with Poland includes the postponement of the new voting system until 2014, and it will now not be fully implemented until 2017. In essence, it means the Poles can maintain their current level of influence in the EU for another 10 years. Under the current system Poland has 27 votes on the EU's decision-making council, compared with 29 for Germany, although its population is twice as big.

Warsaw was also offered pledges of solidarity in the event of any future energy crises, a major concern as Poland is dependent on Russia for much of its energy supplies. Indeed, German-Polish relations took a dramatic turn for the worse when former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder* signed a Baltic Sea pipeline deal in 2005 that bypassed Poland. The Poles felt Germany and the EU was ignoring their concerns about being over-reliant on Russia for energy supplies.

The agreement was only reached after a dramatic struggle the likes of which has not been seen at an EU summit for many years. Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who did not travel to Brussels, seemed to be calling the shots from Warsaw. When he rejected Merkel's first compromise offer, which included a delay to the voting system until 2014 and more seats for Warsaw in the European parliament, it looked as if Germany's dream of a summit success would end in tatters.

A Surprise Ultimatum

But Merkel's reaction was swift: She presented Warsaw with a surprise ultimatum, threatening to move ahead with the treaty without Poland. Her move was a gamble, with Poland's allies the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovakia rushing to defend Warsaw, but it prompted a last-minute rush of mediation and finally Poland was convinced by Blair, Sarkozy and Luxembourg Primer Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who played the good cops to Merkel's bad cop. The German chancellor then presented her last offer to the Poles, and they accepted.

There's more.

*Just prior to leaving office, Gerhard Schröder signed a deal with Russia to build the Nord Stream pipeline. Shortly after leaving office, der Gerhard accepted a lucrative position with a consortium that is controlled by Russian energy monopoly Gazprom --- which is building the pipeline.

Did Blair Get A Hummer?

Tony Blair seems to be having some credibility problems.

Blair hands Brown an EU timebomb as treaty starts to unravel
Gordon Brown has been handed a constitutional 'booby trap' which will rob him of the power to block European interference in dozens of areas of national life, it was claimed.

In a Press conference, Tony Blair declared he had successfully defended Britain's interests in the marathon negotiations over a new 'constitution' for the EU.

But within hours Mr Blair's bold assertions were unravelling, as doubts were cast on crucial treaty clauses designed to safeguard our independent foreign policy and our right to opt out of the controversial Charter of Fundamental Rights.

------ ker-snip ------
Speaking in Brussels at his last ever Press conference as Prime Minister, an exhausted Mr Blair insisted Britain's so-called 'red lines' had not been crossed.

He said: "The four essential things we in the UK required to protect our position have all been obtained."

But a new analysis reveals that this claimed victory may be short-lived.

The UK had insisted on an amendment making clear that the EU's vaulting ambitions to develop its own foreign and security policy could not challenge the interests of national governments.

A 'declaration' was inserted into the footnotes of the treaty saying the 'responsibilities of member states' would not be affected.

However, this first and most important red line now looks less than secure after experts pointed out that in EU language a 'declaration' has limited or no legal power - it is merely a 'political aspiration'.

The treaty creates a new European foreign minister - or High Representative - who will have his own team of envoys and embassies. He will also chair meetings of EU foreign ministers.

Neil O"Brien, director of the Open Europe think-tank, said: "It is hard to see how in practice this will not undermine the freedom of manoeuvre for our own Foreign Secretary." Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "Tony Blair says he has safeguarded British foreign policy from EU interference, even though he has agreed to an EU diplomatic service which will mean EU embassies and an EU foreign minister by any other name.

"When you examine the small print, it is clear his so-called safeguards have no legal guarantees at all.

"This is typical of the Government's approach to negotiation on this vital treaty, which undoubtedly shifts power from Britain to the EU."

A second Blair red line was over the Charter of Fundamental Rights. During the Brussels negotiations, a special opt-out was secured that exempts British courts from this new European bill of rights.

However, European judges warn the opt-out could be subject to a legal challenge. Jacques Ziller, a professor of European Law, has described the British exemption as 'nonsense'.

Britain's third red line covered our right to veto EU decisions on tax and benefits. Mr Blair said there would be no hand-over of power in these areas.

But, under the treaty, Britain has ceded control in 52 separate areas of policy. Critics fear Brussels supporters of a super-state could use these new powers to introduce a common European social security policy by the back door.

According to Mr O"Brien, the first challenge could come over the rights of new migrants from within the EU to claim benefits.

The final red line was Britain's right to veto European plans on criminal justice. But the small print of the treaty revealed that Mr Blair had quietly agreed to relinquish our blocking vote on grandiose plans to create a European police force and public prosecutor.

However, Europe Minister Geoff Hoon, responding to criticism that the Government had failed to defend its own positions, said: "We have spent weeks ensuring that these provisions are watertight."

That's what was said about the Titanic.

See the comments.


Poll: Did Blair Sell Out Britain?

You Can Fool Some . . . .

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown insist that a referendum is unnecessary. Others are call the new EU constitution treaty a sham and are demanding that a referendum be held.

Gordon Brown was under growing pressure last night to hold a referendum on the new EU treaty.

Calls for a vote intensified after Ireland promised to give its people a say.

Irish Premier Bertie Ahern admitted the new treaty reproduced 90 per cent of the EU constitution rejected in 2005. Major constitutional changes are traditionally put to the vote in the Republic.

Tories seized on his remarks to step up demands for a vote on the deal struck by Tony Blair as one of his last acts as Prime Minister.

Their warnings that huge areas of sovereignty were being surrendered set the scene for the first big battle with a Brown Government.

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said Ireland's announcement heightened the injustice to British voters.

He said: "It is now getting clearer and clearer that this is basically the constitution by another name.

Good thing you got that figured out so soon, genius.

"Large amounts of power have been transferred to Brussels and the Government has failed to safeguard Britain's interests.

"People in Britain will want to know, when Irish voters will decide for themselves, why Gordon Brown thinks British people do not have the right to have their say."

In its 2005 election manifesto, Labour promised a referendum on the planned constitution, drawn up the previous year. But the need for a poll disappeared when French and Dutch voters defeated the idea.

Mr Brown promised yesterday to listen to debate on the new treaty - agreed by EU leaders at 5am on Saturday after fraught negotiations - though he said he could see no reason for a vote.

Critics said it was increasingly clear Mr Blair had boxed in his successor by signing an agreement that would implement-almost all the controversial-constitution.

The Chancellor stepped in during the negotiations to insist that Mr Blair stopped France watering down the EU's commitment to free trade.


But analysts said the treaty would undermine Britain's control over its foreign policy. Europe will get its own president, foreign minister and diplomatic service.

Both Mr Blair and Mr Brown insisted Britain's "red lines" were not crossed as the UK won an amendment making it clear the EU's ambitions to develop its own common foreign and security policy would not encroach on the interests of member states.

But critics said the "declaration", added to the footnotes of the treaty, would have no legal force.

Mr Blair also gave up Britain's veto in more than 40 areas, including migration, tourism, transport and energy.

But Mr Brown congratulated him on Sunday, saying his negotiating skills had done what the UK set out to do.

He insisted: "We have met our negotiating position."

The Chancellor also said he did not believe the public would see the need for a vote, as the deal was simply an "amending treaty" rather than a new EU constitution.

And if the Brits rise up with pitchforks proving they're not as stupid as you claim they are?.

He pointed out when the Tories were in power they had not seen the need for a referendum on the 1991 Maastricht treaty, which turned the European Community into the EU and paved the way for the creation of the euro.

But in Ireland, Mr Ahern said: "Given the fact that there was strong legal advice that the draft constitution in 2004 would require a referendum in Ireland, and given the fact that these changes haven't made any dramatic change to the substance of what was agreed back in 2004, I think it is likely that a referendum will be held.

"Ireland over the years has tended to err on the side of caution in relation to this because ultimately it is the people who should decide."

The Irish government was planning a referendum in 2005 but stopped its preparations after France and the Netherlands voted "no".

Both Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke backed Mr Brown's insistence there was no need for a referendum.

Mrs Beckett said Britain was not a country which governs by referendum.

She said: "People buy into the notion that somehow some massive change has taken place. This is not a massive change."

Mr Clarke admitted: "The nuts and bolts are obviously quite essential" but added: "What we have now is far less important than Maastricht. I think the idea we have a referendum is frankly absurd."

He went on: "Some of the Eurosceptics will have demanded a referendum just about the date on the top of the piece of paper, but they are flogging a dead horse."

And others may decide, sir, that you're frankly absurd. Time will tell.

It Wasn't Supposed To Be Like This

The European Union is no closer to compromising on the EU constitution treaty than they were a week ago. In fact, there are more disagreements now than there was before the summit began.

EU Struggles for Eleventh-Hour Deal
The European Union negotiations on a new treaty have yet to produce any tangible results. While outstanding issues have not been resolved, the EU leaders have managed to create even more points of disagreement.

Everyone had warned that the negotiations at this week's crucial European Union summit were going to be tough. The EU leaders have gathered in Brussels to hammer out a deal to replace the now defunct European constitution. But while some may have been hoping against hope that the posturing at home would give way to compromise in Brussels, it seems that instead most leaders are digging their heels in and are even finding new issues to argue about.

The delegates to this week's European Union summit were told to take an extra shirt -- the talks are expected to go on well into Friday night, and even Saturday morning. Summit host German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reported to have presented a revised draft treaty to EU leaders late on Friday afternoon. Now they are going to have to pull up their shirtsleeves and look for a compromise.

The summit is intended to resolve the issues that divide Europe, but over the course of the last 24 hours it seems that European leaders have failed to make any headway on outstanding issues, but have added more points of division to the pot.

While Poland and the UK had already laid out their opposition to the treaty, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was one of its main promoters. But France's attempt to persuade EU leaders to drop a reference to the goal of "undistorted competition" in the treaty has succeeded in putting another spanner in the works.

Under the original proposal, one of the EU's main objectives was listed as an "internal market where competition is free and undistorted." But France persuaded Germany, current EU president, to put a full stop after "internal market" in the new treaty. This may have intended for domestic consumption, but the UK and the Commission have found it distinctly unpalatable.

There's more.

Don't Tread On Me

Warsaw was destroyed during World War II, and over 6 million Poles were killed. The Poles are playing the history card in their current dispute with the EU, but with reason.

ARE THE POLES THE TRUE EUROPEANS?
Looking in the Kaczynskis' Rearview Mirror
If Germany had never invaded Poland, there would be no need to talk about EU voting rights today, says Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. In Brussels there is irritation that Poland is playing the "history card" once again. But Germans in particular should be wary of being too quick to judge.

In the dispute over the voting rights in the European treaty, the Polish Prime Minister Jarolsaw Kaczynski has now come up with an argument that any German would find it difficult to contradict. "If Poland had not had to live through the (World War II) years of 1939-1945, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million." The Polish leader was attempting to justify his demands for an alternative voting rights system, rather than the one proposed by the German rotating EU presidency.

There is no question that not only the history of Poland, but that of every European country, would have been much happier without the German invasion of Poland and its monstrous consequences. It should be remembered that during World War II there were an estimated 6 million Polish victims of the German occupation -- of which 5.7 million were civilians. In Poland alone, 2.4 million Jews were murdered.

Kaczynski made the statement on Polish radio on Tuesday but otherwise it didn't really resonate at home. However in Brussels and Berlin the comments were registered with concern and were seen as an indication the Polish government is now doing what it often does when it runs into trouble: plays the history card.

And this Thursday evening, when the Polish square-root idea is broached, one can expect this kind of reminiscing again. Warsaw is isolated and is threatening to use its veto. But anyone who thinks that a hopeless cause would make the Polish prime minister or president break out in a sweat doesn't know the Polish mentality. When there's nothing more to be done, that's when things really get going for people like the Kaczynskis.

The Catholic twins are caught up in the amber of history.

Memo to der Spiegel: Would you make such an idiotic distinction if the Kaczynskis were Jooos?

But what we might consider isolationism, and even parochialism, the Kaczynskis and most Poles see as a political defensive fortification. While amber conserves, it also protects from outside blows.

And it is a political defensive fortification that will be next to impossible to breach. Unless Germany gives up its quest for domination within the European Union.

Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has called on the Kaczynskis to make a "leap into the present." "You will not be happy in the long-run if you are always looking in the rearview mirror." Juncker is right. But it is worth looking in the Kaczynskis' rearview mirror. Because what the Polish president and his brother, the prime minister, see there is not the same thing that Tony Blair or Jean-Claude Juncker, Angela Merkel or Jose Manuel Barroso see. For the Kaczynskis objects in the mirror appear closer than they really are.

In their rearview mirror, for example, it is the end of August 1939, a few days before the German invasion of Poland and a man by the name of Jozef Beck appears in view. He is Poland's foreign minister and he is receiving the US diplomat Joseph K. Davies in his office in Warsaw. The two are discussing the danger of war breaking out. Davies, previously US ambassador to Moscow, is pretty pessimistic, but Beck sees things differently. The Germans should come! If the Wehrmacht attacks, Polish troops will be in Berlin within three weeks. Davies thought Beck was completely crazy. And he turned out to be right. The Wehrmacht marched into Warsaw four weeks later, and the biggest ever program of destruction in the history of mankind got underway.

Davies urged Beck to form an alliance with Moscow. That was out of the question for the Poles, just as, in all their quarrels with Brussels, it would be out of the question for the Kaczynskis today. The pattern of thought is certainly similar: Before, it was the Germans and the Russians who occupied us, now the EU wants to pull a fast one on us. But how did the Kaczynskis come to this conclusion? A look in their rearview mirror provides some answers.

There's much more.

Those Failing To Remember History . . . .

For many Americans, the history of Europe - just as their own - is a mystery within an enigma; surrounded by a puzzle.

Ask about the Articles of Confederation, Continental Army, Federalist Papers or anti-Federalist Papers, or the Grand Army of the Republic and you'll most often be answered with a blank stare.

The same holds true with the Beer Hall Putsch, Munich Accords, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Operation Anthropoid, Yalta Conference, Potsdam Agreement and the Nuremberg trials.

However, to their credit, we must acknowledge that American Leftists and students, just like the inhabitants of Koslamistan, are very much aware of - and have adopted as their icon - Komrade Che.

In current events, the traditional media has paid little or no attention to the contentiousness that exists between Germany and Poland, or how it may affect the proceedings and outcome of the EU summit.

As a result, most Americans are clueless.

A History Of Betrayals
[....]

The divisions are probably the most important explanation for the exceptional patriotism of the Poles. While all modern European nations invent their own symbols during this era, the royal Polish throne and regalia were taken to Russia, never to be returned. Polish flags and coats of arms were banned, and singing patriotic songs became an act of high treason. The result, writes British historian and Poland expert Norman Davies, was a feeling of patriotism that exempted everything Polish from criticism.

This sentiment recedes slightly into the background only in 1918. With the final collapse of the monarchies in Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, Poland regains its place on the map. The rebirth of the republic is celebrated frenetically by the population. But Germany views the loss of German-speaking territories in Silesia, Pomerania and Western Prussia -- part of Poland by the Treaty of Versailles -- as a great injustice.

Nazi Germany's attack on Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 inaugurates the darkest chapter in Polish-German history. Just six weeks later, the SS commander and chief of Hitler's Reich Security Main Office, [SS-Obergruppenführer] Reinhard Heydrich, announced the "liquidation of the Polish leadership." Jews, Sinti and Roma were not the only victims; Polish politicians and intellectuals were also exterminated. The Nazis erected death camps such as Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka on Polish territory.

The regime of occupation was brutal: Following the elimination of the Polish intelligentsia, the Germans shipped thousands of Poles to Germany as slave laborers. The SS and the Wehrmacht struck down the Warsaw Uprising in the Polish capital in 1944. It was the largest act of resistance against Nazi rule. More than 200,000 people died, and the city was razed to the ground house by house.

At the Yalta Conference in Crimea in February of 1945, the Poles were only granted observer status. Poland had been destroyed, and the Red Army was stationed within the country, which Stalin wanted to turn into a Soviet satellite state. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was prepared to recognize the provisional communist government and British resistance to the plan was weak. Poland fell into the Soviet sphere of influence.

At the Potsdam Conference, half of Poland's eastern territory was separated from the country and made part of the Soviet Union -- the very territories granted to the Soviets as part of the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact. The new Poland was compensated by land in the west -- territory which had previously belonged to the Germans. More than 10 million Germans fled or were expelled. Poles from the country's former eastern territories were resettled and move into the homes of the expellees.

The Communist rulers stoked Polish nationalism, but mostly they fanned the flames of anti-German fear. Their message was that only Poland's alliance with the Soviet Union could prevent the return of the German "crusaders."

Still the first step towards reconciliation came from Poland. In 1956, Polish Catholic bishops sent a letter to their German colleagues. "We grant and request forgiveness," they wrote -- at a time when German expellees were still openly demanding that the Oder-Neisse Line -- the new border between Poland and East Germany -- be redrawn.

The Ostpolitik or Eastern European policy of German Chancellor Willy Brandt broke with the dogmas of the Cold War. When he knelt down in front of a monument commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in December 1970, it caused a scandal within the German right. But in Poland, the gesture was hushed up. The iconic image of the kneeling chancellor became known to the public only during the 1980s: The Communists had no use for the new face the peaceful Germans were presenting to the world.

When General Wojciech Jaruzelski violently suppressed Solidarność ("Solidarity"), the first freely constituted trade union in the Soviet bloc, the German government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt responded mildly, arguing that Jaruzelski effectively prevented a bloody Soviet invasion. To this day, many former dissidents have not forgiven the German left for Schmidt's words.

Nor will they anytime soon.

There's more.


Earlier, Polish Diplomat Speaks Out