Poland and Germany – everything on track? reflection impulse

In the Polish-German Treaty on the Good Neighbourhood of 17 June 1991, both countries undertook to strengthen common trust, economical cooperation and regular consultations. Since then, cooperation has developed, but there have besides been crucial negligence on the German side. Especially Istone are two. Firstly, Germany inactive lacks awareness of the importance of German crimes committed during planet War II, and secondly, the affirmative improvement of Poland over the last 35 years has been overlooked in Germany.

On 17 June 1991, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, German abroad Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Polish Prime Minister Jan Krzysztof Bielecki and Polish abroad Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski signed the Treaty on Good vicinity and Friendly Cooperation. This document, concluded after the fall of the communist government in Poland and after the unification of Germany, became the foundation of a fresh phase in Polish-German relations.

On 7 March 2025, just a day after being elected Chancellor, Friedrich Merz visited both Paris and Warsaw on the same day. no of his predecessors had previously given specified a signal for the balance of both major neighbours.

A fewer days later, the recently elected chancellor went with French president Emmanuel Macron, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tuski and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Kiev to assure president Volodymyr Zelenski of their joint support.

On 4–5 June 2025, after a seven-year break, it took place again Polish-German Forum – another signal of fresh beginning in relations between the 2 countries. A prominent symbol of the event was the minute of awarding the Polish-German Government Award to both Polish countries manager and initiative from Germany, which through Polish-German cooperation became active in helping Ukraine.

All of these events are strong signals of closeness and strength of Polish-German cooperation – especially if we remember that erstwhile Chancellor Olaf Scholz in June 2022, before his journey to Kiev, met with president Macron in Poland, but he went on without the participation of the Polish Prime Minister, which was a clear act of disregard for Warsaw.

However, despite the warmth shown in Warsaw, Friedrich Merz had to see that his conscious symbolism did not solve problems in Polish-German relations. 1 Polish politician after his visit paraphrased the words from “Faust” Goethe: “I hear the news well, but I inactive deficiency faith.” And this was before the election of Karol Nawrocki, the politics of the national-conservative current, for the president of Poland – 1 June 2025.

Priorities of the Law and Justice Government since 2015

Eight years of the regulation of the Law and Justice organization (PiS) in 2015-2023 put Polish-German relations to a severe test: the representatives of the Law and Justice organization presented a clear criticism of Germany, attacking the European Commission as an extension of German hegemonial aspirations in Europe.

W Germany has usually missed 2 crucial aspects:

First of all, PiS subjected its abroad policy to the overarching nonsubjective of ensuring the presence of US troops in Poland – as a warrant of protection from the Russian attack. In Poland, before 2014, 1 could hear: “This is not a question is Russia will attack, only whenIt’s okay. ”

This supraparty concern has long encountered in Germany and Western Europe a mix of ignorance and arrogance. While Poland drew the right conclusions from the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and since 2015, it has been spending at least 2 percent of its GDP on defence (Germany, until the ‘return point’ in 2022, remained well below that level). And not only due to politicians specified as Rolf Mützenich (SPD), who in May 2022 defined the 2 percent mark agreed jointly under NATO as a "totally absurd indicator", and on June 10, 2025 published a manifesto that fundamentally questioned the support of the German government for Ukraine.

Although Angela Merkel's law firm declared in November 2019 that Germany would scope 2 percent “in the early 1930s”, although she personally supported this goal, the east neighbors heard alternatively the postponement of the case to “holy never”. And not only due to the opposition of many co-organising social democrats, but besides due to the fact that there were no shortages of votes in the Union that did not attach the highest importance to Germany's defence capabilities. In Poland, it was remembered that countries specified as France and Germany for years rejected all Polish demands concerning the actual presence of their troops in Poland.

Secondly, the abroad policy of the Law and Justice Office was subject to interior policy priorities. Therefore, relations with all neighbours have worsened – even with Ukraine. After 2014, Poland was 1 of Ukraine's most active military allies, but the Law and Justice brought to the fore the historical issues of its propaganda, in peculiar the Volyn massacre, as the leadership of the organization hoped to win votes – especially in its bastions at the border with Ukraine. This calculation besides worked during this year's presidential election, as Nawrocki won the border region of Podkarpacia, scoring 2 thirds of the vote there, with clearly anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.

Already before the elections to the Sejm in 2023, president Andrzej Duda (PiS) announced the cessation of arms supply for Ukraine until the victims of the massacre were exhumed and buried decently. Voices of this kind can besides be heard in the current government.

W Berlin's internally motivated confrontational abroad policy PiS was, on the another hand, willingly utilized as an excuse not to do besides much for Polish-German relations. The yearly intergovernmental consultations were suspended – which did not meet with peculiar regret on the German side, as this allowed to avoid confronting the question whether any Polish accusations against German politics did not contain any grain of truth.

Negligence of Germany

In its coalition contract, the national government, which has been in office since May 2025, made a provision in respective places to strengthen Polish-German cooperation. First of all, there are 3 main tasks:

1. Most Poles and Poles are afraid that Germany will yet become a credible ally partner. The attention of current Polish abroad minister Radosław Sikorski, said in Berlin in 2011, inactive accurately reflects the concern: “I am afraid of the German power present of little than German inaction.” Unfortunately, after 2011, many manifestations of this inaction appeared – or at least unwillingness to admit that the geopolitical situation began to change dramatically – besides in the United States, at the latest after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. However, the Americans have already repeatedly called for Europe, especially Germany, to take greater work for their own security. Donald Tusk put it correctly in 2025, commenting that it is hard to explain why 300 million Americans would defend 500 million Europeans from 140 million Russians.

As powerfully as anti-Americanism has always resonated in Germany – both on the right and on the left, and sometimes on the SPD – it was so convenient to trust on the protection of Americans and focus on doing business with Russia Putin. In 2015, a year after Russia's attack on Ukraine, the first contracts for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline were signed. Nobody in Poland believed that it was a "clean economical project". In addition to a legitimate effort to affect Russia through economical cooperation, the focus was on the interests of the German economy, which in addition to the SPD besides supported tiny circles of CDU and CSU. Today, there are again voices demanding increased imports of gas and oil from Russia. This strategy of Russia's commitment has already failed once. The effort to repeat it all the more evokes memories in the countries neighbouring Germany in the east of the time erstwhile first Prussia and then the German Empire got along with Russia – at the expense of Poland and the Baltic nations.

Donald Tusk's government expects concrete conclusions to be drawn from the experience so far. It is primarily about the credible support of Ukraine in its defence against the Russian invasion. The first actions of both national Chancellor Friedrich Merz and abroad Minister Johann Wadephul in Poland are perceived as affirmative signals. These include a clear declaration by Merza during the authoritative inauguration of the entry into service of the Bundeswehr brigade in Lithuania that all centimeter of NATO's territory will be defended. Poland feels straight threatened by Russia, and more than a 3rd of Poles are convinced that Russia will attack Poland if it succeeds in Ukraine. We do not request to share this opinion, but the German policy towards Poland must find the answer to this concern.

The transfer of the Polish-German-Danish brigade from Szczecin to the area of the Suwałki gulf could be specified a visible gesture. Germany could besides initiate cooperation between the NATO Baltic States with a view to jointly strengthening maritime protection – with a share proportional to the economical capacity of each country. In the context of Ukraine, in addition to military support, civilian initiatives would besides be worth taking – for example, expanding the European University of Viadrina in Frankfurt nad Oder and in Słubice about the campus on the Polish-Ukrainian border.

2. The second current challenge is migration. In Poland, there has always been a mention to German migration policy, which was seen as uncontrolled. In addition, it was considered unfair that in Berlin and Brussels hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were not appreciated by Poland – especially since 2014 – and then millions of refugees in the spring of 2022, as a real contribution to European migration policy. Meanwhile, Poland did something admirable in the years 2022 and 2023: the fast reception and integration of these refugees – without having to place them in mass exile centres, as was the case in Germany, but with fast integration into schools and the labour market. While in Germany the employment of Ukrainian teachers frequently resulted in failure due to the deficiency of designation of Ukrainian pedagogical qualifications and the request to talk German, the Polish government rapidly agreed with the Ukrainian Government on the joint backing of Ukrainian teachers in Poland and entrusting them with teaching Ukrainian youth – this is simply a good example of what any people in Germany describe as “just do it”.

Also in Poland, signs of fatigue of further support for Ukrainian refugees are increasingly visible. Right-wing and far-right candidates in the presidential election effectively preyed on these sentiments, claiming that Ukrainians in Poland are better supported than Poles themselves.

Moreover, the Polish government opposes unilateral controls on the German side of the border in 2024 and proposes alternatively joint investments in protecting the EU's external border, both towards the Russian royal circuit in the north and against Belarus, where both regimes systematically support smuggling activities. During his inaugural visit to Warsaw, national Chancellor Merz declared that he would seriously consider this proposal. This would be a good signal of the will to act together, especially erstwhile you look at the situation at the border itself: the A12 motorway between Berlin and Warsaw is simply a depressing example – the control infrastructure is located on the Polish side of Odra and must not be used. On the German side of the border, there is no space to carry out checks, resulting in mile-long traffic, but the vehicle checks themselves are minimal. It doesn't make sense.

3. The future of Polish-German relations can only win if the past remains in sight. The fundamental difference between Germany and Poles is revealed in the “Poland-Germany Barometer” developed by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Polish-German Cooperation Foundation, the German Institute of Polish Affairs and the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw: 60 percent of Poles who measure relations as bad justify this “insufficient settlement of German war crimes in Poland and the deficiency of compensation from Germany in relation to losses suffered by Poland during planet War II”. Only 31 percent of the Germans share that opinion. fresh president Karol Nawrocki has been head of the Institute of National Memory so far. He and a large part of Polish society will proceed to address this issue.

Subsequent national governments have repeated in the past that the issue of reparation has been completed legally. Regardless of the assessment of this position, in Poland there is simply a bitter impression that Germany does not fulfil its responsibility. erstwhile Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Warsaw in the summertime of 2024 for a rudely short, several-hour intergovernmental summit, he brought as a humanitarian motion an offer to pay 200 million euro to the victims of national socialism in Poland. Prime Minister Donald Tusk rejected this proposal with harsh words.

Another example: as early as October 2020, the Bundestag – over organization divisions – decided to make in Berlin "a memorial and gathering place that will reflect the character of a common Polish-German past and will contribute to deepening peculiar bilateral relations". Since then, the task has been stuck in administrative competency disputes and chronicities. In Poland this is read as a deficiency of will to implement it.

W Berlin lacked determination for a long time to find a way forward, acceptable to both countries, against historical guilt that simply cannot be "fixed". These include:

• from 5 to six million Polish citizens murdered in occupied Poland during planet War II, including 3 million Jews;
• mass displacement of Poles by Germans;
• two bloodyly suppressed uprisings in Warsaw with hundreds of thousands of victims;
• the capital systematically destroyed by the Germans;
• Hitler-Stalin pact, which led to the failure of east territories of Poland and the long-term enslavement of the country by the russian Union;
• the legacy of extermination camps, specified as Auschwitz or Treblinka, in the Polish territory, which inactive puts Poland in an unbearable situation, in which it must repel accusations on the global phase erstwhile the media are talking again about "concentration camps in Poland", and even about "Polish camps";
• perpetrators who, as a rule, have never been punished in Germany, specified as SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth, “the butcher of Warsaw”, later mayor of Westerland and since 1958 MP for the Landtag;
• declarations that sound like excuses that "the time at the time was not yet ripe" for settlement;
• The common belief among the Germans is that “you must yet put a dot.”

All this – and much more – has not been forgotten in Poland, and rightly so. Although for most Poles this no longer determines their view of Germany, it remains an crucial component of collective memory.

Different perspectives in both countries

On the contrary, even the anti-Polish policy of the Law and Justice has obscured the image of Germany in the eyes of Poles, but it has failed to overthrow it. Although after 2016, the percent of Poles seeing Germany primarily as an aggressor increased from 21 to 30 percent, after the change of government this value dropped rapidly to 20 percent. In turn, 65 percent consider Germany a modern country – although the slow improvement of the German economy and the deficiency of reforms are amazing in Poland: in any with a slight sense of satisfaction, given the awesome economical growth of Poland, in others with concern, due to the fact that economical relations are already very closely linked.

Another reason the PiS never managed to destruct the affirmative image In the eyes of Poles, there is simply a strong link between both countries: millions of Poles visited Germany as tourists and took up work there; Germany was besides professionally present in Poland, although little frequently. In addition, institutions specified as the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation (FWPN), Polish-German Youth Cooperation (PNWM), the German Institute of Polish Affairs and many Polish-German and German-Polish Associations are conducive to common cognition and joint action: the FWPN itself has supported tens of thousands of specified initiatives since its inception. 50 Polish-German Associations operating throughout the territory Germany is regular implementing concrete projects for a common future and has submitted 10 concrete proposals to the fresh national government to strengthen cooperation – from the long-awaited expansion of rail connections (including the fast Paris–Berlin–Warsaw–Kijów line), to financial reinforcement of PNWM and FWPN.

All Poles anticipate Germans to know the crimes committed. In Poland, over political divisions, disappointment is expressed that in German collective memory more places are devoted to crimes in the erstwhile russian Union (often identifying Ukrainian and Belarusian victims with Russian ones), while much little to those which Germany committed during six nightmare years of business in Poland – with the intention of extermination or enslavement of the full nation. The subject is inactive besides poorly present in the German past curriculum – besides due to the fact that the common Polish-German textbook is not supported by the ministries of education of individual national states. All the more crucial is the proposal of the fresh Minister of Education, Karin Prien (CDU), who has held office since May 2025, for all young people to visit the concentration camp at least once.

The deficiency of cognition of Germans is besides a problem in relation to contemporary Poland: Poland is the country with the highest economical growth in Europe since the 1989 changes. This besides applies to 2025 – while no growth is expected again in Germany, the Polish economy is expected to grow by another 3 percent. Poland is now the 4th most crucial partner of Germany in both exports and imports. In 2024 Poland overtook China in terms of exports to Germany. And 1 more thing: Warsaw lies closer to Berlin than Bonn. In German consciousness, however, the road from Sprewa nad Vistula inactive seems longer than the Rhine.

Poland as a function model

Germans frequently have – at best – an outdated image of Poland, which they consider to be a country in any way backward. However, present it is alternatively the opposite: Poland has radically modernised administration, infrastructure and economy over the last 35 years. A brief comparison between the partner cities Berlin and Warsaw shows this:

• In both cities it is hard to get a deadline in the office – with the difference, due to the fact that in Warsaw it is not necessary: almost everything can be arranged online, and if not, the service is fast and efficient.
• W Warsaw metro and tram lines are not just a subject of debate, but are simply being built. Buses are electric. The cycle way network is developing dynamically. Public transport is punctual and clean.
• Warsaw is 1 of the safest cities in the world.
• While in Berlin the number of trees – although inactive advanced – has been slow decreasing for years and is now somewhat over 400,000, the capital of Poland is implementing an ambitious programme "1 million trees for Warsaw". all period we see fresh plantings in urban space.

Germany suffers from the slowness of administrative processes. In Poland too, court proceedings are taking besides long. In addition, however, the administration works smoothly: setting up a company can be virtually arranged over the net without moving from the kitchen table. Poland has a taxation strategy that any in the CDU dreamed of at a convention in Leipzig in 2003: there are only 2 taxation rates, and almost all reliefs have been eliminated. In practice, the taxation burden on people with advanced incomes in Poland is comparable to that in Germany. In Germany, however, it is inactive a fiction that advanced taxation rates with many deduction possibilities are more equitable.

Taking Poland as a model of long-awaited reforms in Germany? specified a proposition is surprising. However, it would be advisable for members of the national government or the Berlin legislature to find out in individual what can be learned from the neighbour. This applies not only to Hercules' task, which has been carried out by the national Minister for Digitization and Modernization of the Karsten Wildberger State since May 2025.

Poland is simply a modern country in the heart of Europe and a key partner within the EU and NATO. Historical awareness helps to work with the future in mind. Improving global cooperation can besides aid to address certain bilateral challenges. The persistent division of society in Poland and tensions between the national-conservative president and the coalition government led by the Civic Platform will be a challenge for Polish-German cooperation. There will be work for both Germans and Poles – as well as for the recently appointed national Government coordinator for cooperation with Poland in the field of civilian society and border cooperation, Knut Abraham, who knows Poland well from his own experience.

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