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Anna Czaplinski-Mirek, Editor

Contents

fff Note from the Director 1 The End of Polish-German Reconciliation? 2 Recent visitors to Columbia 3 May 3-4, 2007 Polish-German Conference 5 Fall 2007 Events 6 Spotlight on Sponsors: SWAP 7 Special Thanks to Donors 12

A Note from the Director

I n 2006-07, Columbia Univer-sity’s Polish Program hosted Zdzisław Krasnodębski of Bre-men University, Germany. Pro-

fessor Krasnodębski offered, among other things, two courses on Polish-German relations during his time at Columbia, and co-organized an im-portant conference on Polish Ger-man Reconciliation, held on May 3-4, 2007 (see page five). Coming as it did just a few weeks before the con-tentious meeting of the European Council on June 21-22 in Brussels, our conference brought into focus some of the problems that remain to be resolved between Poland and Germany, problems that reappear in domestic Polish politics and in Po-

land’s international relations. In the lead article of this Newsletter, Pro-fessor Krasnodębski analyzes these problems and suggests a way for-ward. Our program for the coming Aca-demic Year is being fashioned even as this Newsletter goes to print, and will include an assortment of lec-tures, training workshops for Polish supplemental school teachers, an Open House and informational ses-sion for Polish-American high school students preparing for college, and activities organized by the Columbia Polish Student Society. Our speak-ers will include former Polish Na-tional Bank Chairman Leszek Balce-rowicz, prominent historian Norman

Davies, Polish Vice-Minister of Eco-nomics Piotr Naimski, among oth-ers. A conference — now in the planning stage — on lustration and dealing with the past will conclude our activities for the Fall semester. The reason that we can organize such an ambitious program is be-cause of the continued support that individuals and institutions provide, and which we gratefully acknowl-edge on these pages and elsewhere. As always, I invite your participa-tion and hope to see you at some of our events.

John S. Micgiel Director

LEFT: The Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union (PSFCU) presented Columbia Uni-versity with a $100,000 check toward the endowment of a Chair in Polish Studies on May 31, 2007. The presentation took place at the Credit Union’s headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: PSFCU Chairman Krzysztof Matyszczyk; PSFCU CEO, Mr. Bogdan Chmielewski, PSCFU Board Sec-retary Małgorzata Wądołowska; PSFCU Board Member John Szałyga; Professor John Micgiel, SIPA Associate Dean Dan McIntyre, and PSFCU Vice Chairwoman Elżbieta Baumgartner.

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The Miracle of Reconci l iat ion

I n the 1990s, Polish-German relations seemed to be almost perfect and friendly. After dec-

ades – or as some maintained centu-ries - of conflicts and struggles – rec-onciliation was at least achieved. In many speeches delivered by leading German politicians during official meetings and conferences Poland was referred to as our “France in the East.” As we know, France was considered to be the Erbfeind, the hereditary enemy, by Germans since the 19th century. Poland and Poles held a similar status in the German collective con-sciousness, especially after 1918 as Poland re-emerged as an independ-ent state. Of course, Willi Brandt‘s “Ostpolitik,” the relatively good cooperation in the days of Edward Gierek, and sympathy – although not without some misunderstanding and prejudices - for the Solidarność movement and human support for Polish society during the time of martial law had changed the atti-tudes of both societies very much. But it was the collapse of commu-nism that opened up the possibility of political cooperation and alliance. In Germany, there was widespread belief that just as reconciliation with France developed after 1945, the same level of partnership could be achieved with Poland. Some politi-cians of the German conservative party, the CDU, saw in that policy the fulfillment of Konrad Ade-nauer’s legacy, who on his deathbed allegedly said – “do not forget Po-land.” One author described German politics toward Poland as follows:

“With the end of the cold war, Ger-many has responded to the dilem-mas of its ‘multilateral Mittelelage’ by forging a new strategic partner-ship with Poland, the largest and geopolitically most important of the new democracies in Central Europe. The new bilateral relation-ship, which has been from the start embedded in a broader multilateral context is of pivotal importance for reordering Europe.”1

Germany became Poland’s main partner in the West. As one of the leaders of the Polish anti-communist opposition, Jan Józef Lipski said: “our road into the West European house leads through Germany.” When Poland started striving for membership in the EU, Polish poli-ticians used to speak about Ger-many as “our advocate” in the European Union. Polish Foreign Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski coined the concept of a community of values and aims between Poland and Germany. After 1994, when Poland joined NATO, the political elites developed

into a kind of mutual admiration society. The dialogue became so schematic and monotonous that some commentators spoke about a “kitsch of reconciliation.” President Aleksander Kwaśniewski said after one meeting with German politi-cians that Polish-German relations were so good that they had became almost boring. The general cultural and intellec-tual atmosphere was quite favorable for the politics of reconciliation. Ger-mans were grateful because of the role which Solidarność and the whole Polish opposition movement had played in bringing down the Berlin wall, which led to the re-unification of Germany. (One must, however, add that they thought that the role of Gorbachev was much more important.) The image of Pol-ish freedom fighters was revitalized. In Poland after all the years of com-munist, anti-German propaganda there was a vivid interest in Ger-many’s cultural and intellectual heri-tage. German culture was no longer seen in purely national terms, but in a larger Western and European con-text. Poles had also rediscovered the German past of the Polish Western provinces. Some writers, such as Stefan Chwin and Paweł Huelle, started to write about Gdansk fol-lowing the style of Günter Grass. Sometimes that rediscovery went so far that in some towns in former East Prussia old Prussian monu-ments were restored. Poland was also ready to talk about the expulsions. The suffering of Germans who had had to leave their home country at the end of World War II was acknowledged.

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The End of Polish-German Reconciliation? by

Zdzisław Krasnodębski Kosciuszko Foundation-Semper Polonia Foundation Distinguished

Visiting Professor of Polish Studies at Columbia University, 2006-07

Zdzisław Krasnodębski

Recent Visitors at C

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ABOVE: Publisher Jan Solowiej and Professor Ewa Kurek of the Higher School of Humanities and Economics in Łódź, on the occasion of her lecture “Polish-Jewish Relations, 1939-1945” held on February 26, 2007.

In 1995 Władysław Bartoszewski spoke in the German Parliament about the suffering of the German people expelled from the old Ger-man Eastern territories. Some Pol-ish intellectuals became well-known and influential in Germany, for in-stance, Andrzej Szczypiorski or jour-nalist Adam Krzemiński. Moreover, new institutions for cooperation were established. For instance, the “Foundation for Pol-ish-German Cooperation” was cre-ated with funding from the old debts of the Polish People’s Republic in-curred in Germany by Gierek during the 1970s. This money was now in-vested in many projects in Poland, including the reconstruction of Bis-marck’s manor house and the ex-change of village choirs. The other important organization was the Jugendwerk, which promotes youth exchange. The Deutsches Polen-

(Continued from page 2) Institutes or German Institute for Polish Culture, in Darmstadt, which in the 1980s promoted Polish litera-ture in Germany, changed its profile in the 1990s and tried to influence political discourse and to function as a German-Polish think tank. In many German cities, Societies for German-Polish Friendship sprang up - some of which had been organ-ized already in the 1980s – which also promoted cultural exchange between both countries. All major German foundations opened up of-fices in Poland. German historians are working on Polish history in the German Historical Institute. In Warsaw and Krakow there are Goethe Institutes which promote German culture. At the University of Wrocław, the Willi Brandt Center for German and European Studies was established, and financed by the German Academic Exchange Ser-vice. The fact that all the important German newspapers have corre-

spondents in Poland shows that Ger-mans pay a great deal of attention to Polish affairs. The only English speaking newspaper to base a corre-spondent in Warsaw is the Financial Times. For obvious reasons, Polish activ-ity in Germany was much more lim-ited and mostly also financed by the German side. In some cities there are Institutes for Polish Culture, spon-sored by the Polish state. In 2006 in Berlin, the Polish Academy of Sci-ence opened an Institute.

The Treat ies The formal basis for the new rela-tions were the Boundary Treaty of 1990 and the Treaty on Good Neighborliness and Friendly Coop-eration of June 17 1991. The Polish-German boundary turned out to be one of the most problematic legacies of World War II. It was – and still is – a very vital

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R I G H T : P r o f e s s o r Katarzyna Gabryelczyk of the Economics Academy in Poznań lectured on “Determinants of the de-velopment of the Polish Mutual Fund Market” on March 8, 2007.

LEFT: Archivist Maciej Olczak of the Archive of Modern Re-cords in Warsaw, is currently on assignment at the Piłsudski In-stitute and a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University through December 2007.

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problem for Poland because one third of Polish territory belonged to Ger-many before World War II. The dispute between Poland and Germany concerned the interpreta-tion of part IX (B) of the Potsdam Agreement.2 Under that provision, the final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland was to await a peace settlement. The German legal position held that the German Reich survived the military surrender and collapse of the German state in 1945. Sovereignty could be transferred to Poland only by concluding a peace treaty with a reunified German state. Neither the Polish treaty with the German Democratic Republic of 1950 nor the Polish treaty with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1979 were considered binding on re-unified Germany. Poland viewed the transfer of sovereignty as final, be-cause the Agreement referred to the “former German territories under Polish administration” and held that the German Reich no longer existed as a state after its collapse in 1945. The Polish-German Border Treaty of November 14, 1990, confirmed the existing border between them, pro-claimed its inviolability, and obliged the parties to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. However the way to agreement was not easy. For a long time, Ger-man Chancellor Kohl hesitated to make clear that the boundary was final. In his famous ten-point plan on German unification he did not men-tion the border question at all. He issued several very ambiguous state-ments on that topic, which alarmed the Polish side and initiated Polish diplomatic activity. Poland sought support among the former Allied powers and received it especially from France and Great Britain. The acknowledgement of the border was presented to the Germans as the price that had to be paid for reunification. As Helmut Kohl said in the Bundestag on 21 June 1990: “We stand today

(Continued from page 3) before an entirely clear choice: Ei-ther we confirm the border as its ex-ists, or we gamble away the chance of German unity for now.” Mr. Kohl also used to stress that the border was unjust, but that in a united Europe, they would lose their mean-ing.

Remaining problems Notwithstanding the cooperation between politicians of both coun-tries, their societies embraced the new friendship proclaimed by their leaders with reluctance and some-times resisted. In Poland, the mem-ory of Nazi atrocities is still very strong and mistrust toward Germans is widespread. Even more negative attitudes are to be found in German society. Many Germans still look at Poles with dislike and contempt. Af-ter opening the border in 1989, there were several attacks on Polish travel-ers. Only 37% of Germans supported Poland’s membership in the EU. It is no wonder that at that time numer-ous conferences and public discus-sions were organized about stereo-types and the ways in which they could be controlled or eliminated. It was not only prejudices in both societies that were a source of trou-ble. Some legal and political prob-lems remained unsolved and were not discussed openly. The Treaty on Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation did not resolve the im-portant question of former German property in Poland. In fact, the Treaty contained a document signed by German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher in which the Ger-man side stated explicitly that the treaty did not settle that question. There is also a certain asymmetry in treating each others’ minorities. The Treaty clearly defined members of the German minority in Poland as all Polish citizens who declare their German origin, language, culture, and traditions. Poland also gave them special political rights, and since 1991 the German minority has its representatives in the Sejm. The

Treaty stated that those German citi-zens who would like to develop their Polish identity and culture also have the right to do so. However the status of minority was not applied to them. The German side maintained that there is no Polish minority in Germany, because people with a Polish identity are not a settled eth-nic group but economic migrants. For a long time all those migrants were considered in the FRG simply to be simply Germans and they were expected to assimilate quickly and, for example, their Christian names were changed without their consent into German versions. Although the Treaty resulted in a great improve-ment in the situation of Poles or people of Polish decent in Germany, they never could dream about the level of support and privileges en-joyed by the Germans in Poland. Moreover the controversial article 116 of the German Basic Law con-tinued to apply. According to it Ger-many treats all the people who lived in Germany within the borders of 1937, and their descendants, to be German. Poland for obvious rea-sons declines to recognize the dual citizenship of members of the Ger-man minority in Poland, but in real-ity tolerates it. Poland also rejected the proposed use of bilingual local names.

Sudden Crisis And so, the friendship that had been so passionately declared after 1989 did not last very long. For the last few years, there has been a kind of cold war between Poland and Germany again. What has hap-pened? What went wrong? The first indication of change was the dispute over the “expulsion of the Germans” from new Polish terri-tory after World War II. The dispute began when Erica Steinbach became in 1998 the leader of the Federation of Expellees in Germany. Previ-ously, she had been considered by Polish public opinion as an unimpor-

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RIGHT: Participants in the Polish Program’s Conference on “Polish-German Recon-ciliation: A Never Ending Story?” included, from left: Krzysztof Kasprzyk, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in New York; Marek A. Cichocki, Advisor to Pol-ish President Lech Kaczyński; and Hans-Juergen Heim-soeth, Consul General of the Republic of Germany in New York.

tant political figure, notwithstanding the fact that she was a CDU Member of Parliament and since 2000 a mem-ber of the CDU Board. She has proven to be a clever and effective politician. Under her leadership, the Federation changed its language. Instead of using revisionist or nation-alist phraseology and questioning the borders directly, which was not pos-sible after 1991, it stressed human

(Continued from page 4) rights and European values, simultane-ously emotionally condemning the Czech Republic and Poland as Ver-treibungstaaten (expelling states). The resettlement of the Germans was termed the “expulsion atroc-ity” (Vertreibungsuntat or Verteibungsun-recht) and was depicted as an excep-tional crime. The number of victims was exaggerated at 2.5 million, while in fact the number is closer to 400 thousand. The Polish side maintains that among them about 60 thousand

could be considered to be victims of Polish repression because they died in the camps or during transporta-tion to Germany. The rhetoric of the Federation of Expellees was effective because the entire moral and intellectual atmos-phere had changed in Germany. After years of expiation, it become fashionable even in liberal and leftist circles to write and talk about Ger-man suffering. Gűnther Grass’s book

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Polish-German Reconciliation: A Never Ending Story? Conference

May 3 - 4, 2007

LEFT: Among the other speakers were, from left: Paweł Zalewski, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Polish Sejm; Marcus Meckel, Chairman of the German-Pol i sh Par l i amentary Group in the German Bundestag; and Andrzej Nowak of the Jagiellonian University, Kraków.

View the conference at: ttp://www.sipa.columbia.edu/regional/ECE/research/intermarium/index.html

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Events for Fall 2007 September 13 A Film Showing of “Solidarność, Solidarność,” commemorating the events of August 1980. A co-production of 13 prominent Polish directors: Filip Bajon, Jacek Bromski, Ryszard Bugajski, Jerzy Domaradzki, Feliks Falk, Robert Gliński, Andrzej Jakimowski, Jan Jakub Kolski, Juliusz Machulski, Małgorzata Szumowska, Piotr Trzaskalski, Andrzej Wajda, and Krzysztof Zanussi. With Ewa Turczanska, postproduction coordina-tor. 113 minutes, in Polish with Eng-l i sh subt i t les . 1501 IAB (International Affairs Building, 420 West 118th St.), 6:00 pm. - 9:00 pm. September 17 "Energy Diversifica-tion Strategy in Po-land," Piotr Naimski (Secretary of State in the Polish Ministry of Economics, Govern-ment Plenipotentiary for Oil and Gas Supply), 1501 IAB, Noon -1:15 pm. September 20 "Past and Present in East Central Euro-pean Business Cul-tures," Maria Findrik (Central European University, Budapest, and Columbia University), 1219 IAB, Noon - 2 pm. September 24 Professor Norman Davies discusses his latest book, No Simple Victory. Europe at War, 1939-1945 (Viking/Penguin, 2007), 1501 IAB, 6:00 pm.

October 15 "Polonia: Co-lumbia Wants You," an information session on college admission for members of the Polish-American community, cosponsored by the Polish Slavic Federal Credit Union, the Polish Students Organization, and the Co-lumbia-Barnard Polish Student Soci-ety, 1501 IAB, 4:00 pm. - 7:00 pm. October 31 “Institutional Change After Com-munism,” Professor Leszek Balcerowicz (Economist and former Chairman of the Polish National Bank), 1501 IAB, 5 pm. With an introduction by John Birkelund. November 4 "Polish Language Regents Exams," organized by the Polish Supplemen-tary School Head-quarters, and the Education Commis-sion of the Polish American Con-gress. 411 & 413 IAB, 12:00 pm. - 4:00 pm. For more information, contact Ms. Jolanta Szulc at jszulc@aol.com. November 15 Book release party on the occasion of the publication of Aston-ishments (Paraclete press, 2007), edited by Grażyna Drabik and David Curzon. Laby-rinth Books, 536 West 112th Street, New York City, 7 pm. (telephone 212-865-1588).

Crabwalk, about the fate of the pas-sengers of the “Wilhelm Gustloff,” a vessel torpedoed by a Russian sub in the Baltic Sea that resulted in the deaths of 9,000 people and became the largest maritime disaster of the 20th century, and Jörg Friedrich’s The Fire, about the Allied bombing of German cities, become national bestsellers. On 27 May 1998, the Bundestag passed a resolution declaring expel-lees, repatriates, and German mi-norities a “bridge between Ger-many and its Eastern neighbors.” The parliament’s resolution con-cerning EU accession for the coun-tries of East Central Europe spoke of the acceptance of “basic Euro-pean freedoms for all citizens in old and new member states, meaning also for the German expellees. The German Bundestag nurtures the hope that in the process of acced-ing to the European Union, the adoption of the acquis communau-taire by Poland and the Czech Re-public will facilitate the solution of those bilateral questions that are still open.” It was also said explic-itly that there were still unresolved issues between Poland and Ger-many concerning the expellees. In response, the Sejm stated in its July 1998 resolution that the Bundestag text was “unhelpful for the develop-ment of Polish-German coopera-tion” and contained “dangerous tendencies.” As the project to establish a “Center against Expulsions” in Ber-lin became known, the Polish pub-lic’s reaction was stormy. All pub-lic figures including for example Marek Edelman, Stanislaw Lem, Leszek Kołakowski, Bronisław Geremek, and Władysław Bar-toszewski, agreed that it would lead to a distortion of proportions and to forgetting the real cause of the trag-

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(Continued on page 7) For an updated listing of events go to: http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/regional/ECE/academics/regional/poland.html

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The oldest independent fraternal organization of former Polish soldiers is the Polish Army Veterans Association — Stowarzyszenie Weteranów Armii Polskiej w Ameryce (SWAP), which has been servings its members without interruption since 1921. Its headquarters, the “Polish Veterans House,” is located in Manhattan at 119 East 15th Street, which belongs to the Association’s Second District. This location houses the Association’s archives, as well as the Mu-seum of the Polish Military Tradition, founded in 1966. Among its most valuable collections include: an index of over 20,000 veterans from the two world wars who were, or are, members of SWAP; a listing of over 38,000 Americans and Canadians who volunteered to serve in the Polish Army in France between 1917-1919; and a rich assembly of photographs and audio-visual materials, mostly soldiers’ recollections. The Museum contains Polish flags and pendants, uniforms, weapons and medals, and military equipment from the First and Second World Wars. The Polish Army Veterans Association in America is also active in publishing, among other things, the monthly “Weteran,” which has been continuously in print since 1921 and is the oldest such Polish serial in the world. Recently, the Association began publishing books and producing documentary films thanks to funding from the SWAP Founda-tion and the Association’s District 2. SWAP was among the very first institutions to offer financial support to the Polish Program at Columbia, and since 2003 has donated a total of $50,000. Their website can be accessed at: httpp://www.pava-swap.org.

Spotlight on our Sponsor: The Polish Army Veterans Association

edy – the aggression of Nazi Ger-many and its politics of extermina-tion. For Poles, it was totally unac-ceptable that the Germans concen-trate more and more on their victim-hood. The dispute reached its emo-tional high point, when the weekly Wprost published a cover page with Erica Steinbach in SS uniform riding Gerhard Schroeder, something that the German public received with anger and indignation. The issue of German victimhood is still being pursued, and in the summer of 2006 there were two exhibitions about expulsions shown in Berlin, one of which was organized by Ms. Stein-bach. However, the real turning point in Polish-German relations was the war in Iraq. Poland’s support of the US intervention in Iraq and the send-ing of Polish troops there raised an outcry in Germany. Even before,

(Continued from page 6) Poland’s pro-American attitude had been perceived with great suspicion by Germans and the German gov-ernment. Germans were afraid that Poland could be a US Trojan horse within the European Union, instead of being a loyal ally of Germany, and now that fear seemed justified. Poland was accused of damaging European solidarity, even if there was no common European position towards Iraq. The German media was full of derogatory comments, filled with irony and contempt.

The new fore ign policy of the Berl in Republic There are deeper reasons for those tensions. Before 1990, the Federal Republic of Germany re-mained very restrained in its political ambitions and reluctant to exercise power, especially with respect to the use of force. The general opinion was that the epoch of the nation-state had come

to an end, and that Germany in the future would became a part of a po-litically unified Europe. Hans-Dietrich Genscher once said that Germany had no national interests, because its interests were identical with those of Europe.

This attitude was influenced by historical experiences, by the memory of two massive defeats in the 20th century, and by the crimes committed during World War II. According to the two au-thors of a well-known book about Germany, memory functioned as chains that restrained the political power of Germany.

We believe that the greatest inhibitor of German ambition is not external but internal: the dominant beliefs of its citi-zenry and the politics of mem-ory. … The potential sphere of German influence – eco-

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Study Polish at Columbia! Learn to read Herbert, Milosz, Różewicz, Szymborska, even Adam Mickiewicz in the original. The Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University offers three levels:

Elementary (W1101) Intermediate (W1201) Advanced (W 3101)

In addition to our traditional Polish courses, we offer

PROFESSIONAL POLISH FOR HERITAGE SPEAKERS (W4031) The course addresses the needs of heritage speakers to read, understand,

and write in Polish at the highest levels of functional proficiency.

Our classes are small; thus, students have the opportunity to participate in exercises all the time. The language is taught by professionals utilizing the latest language teaching techniques, video and audio pro-grams, etc.

**NYU students may enroll via the

Consortium**

For further information contact: Anna Frajlich-Zajac, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer Dept. of Slavic Languages Columbia University af38@columbia.edu

There are many reasons you may want to take Polish, the language spoken by over 50 million people around the world; the language of a rich cultural tradition and a vibrant new society.

* You may fulfill your language requirement regardless of your origin, and your field of interest.

* If you study law, business, or finance, Polish may became a useful tool on the job market. Ever since Poland joined the global economy, many business majors seek internships in the World Bank, or in Warsaw’s financial institutions.

* If you specialize in European or Jewish history, Polish proficiency gives you access to historical documents of crucial importance.

* If you are a literature major, keep in mind that of all Slavic countries, Poland is the only one to have a Renaissance tradition, and the only one that had two Nobel Laureates in literature in the last quarter of a century.

* If you are a pre-med or pre-law student, keep in mind the large Polish communities which may become your business target in the near future.

Uczmy się Polskiego!!

nomic, diplomatic, cultural, even military – is enormous. Yet dominated by a deeply ingrained, perhaps obsessive, collective memory of the past power-seeking, the German response is characterized by caution and confusion rather than opportunism and preda-tory behavior.3

However, after re-unification the mood in Germany changed. Ger-mans became conscious of the fact that Germany had regained sover-eignty and that it was the strongest state in Europe. No wonder that one could observe the growing confi-dence of Germany. It became a “self-confident nation.” The concept was used previously only by the people considered to be far-right. The red-green government of Chancellor Schroeder took it over for own aims. “This new self-confidence resulted not least from Germany’s perception of being indispensable to European and global integration and of playing a key role in the EU enlargement process; but at the same time, Ger-many felt the need to promote the integration of Europe and of Ger-many in Europe even more strongly than before.”4 According to a self-definition pro-posed by political scientist Hans Maull, Germany is still a “civilian power” or Zivilmacht, and not a su-perpower or Machtstaat. In his view, both combined power, restraint and multilateralism. “Civilian power is about exerting influence. Its objec-tive is the civilianization of interna-tional environment, which means that through a process similar to civilianization with the nation states, the use of military force is tamed in order to guarantee the rule of law, prosperity and legitimate govern-ance…. In order to tame violence, Civilian Power practices restraint in the use of military force; in order to build up international institutions, it favors collective action; in order to

(Continued from page 7) address non-military threats to secu-rity, it employs no-military foreign policy instruments.”5 This sounds pretty nice. Yet there are some aspects of this conception that make one feel somewhat un-easy. It could express an inclination to think that Germany in its foreign policy never promotes its own par-ticularistic interests, but always is active in the name of universalistic principles and for the sake of the other, who should be the objects of the politics of civilianization. In real-ity, Germany often pursues its own quite particular interests in the name of Europe. The other weak aspect of Maull’s notion is that it seems to assume that all differences of interest are negotiable. The most important modification of Germany’s foreign policy culture concerned the use for force.23 It was the “Red-Green” government of Chancellor Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer that broke with that taboo. More and more of-ten, Germany put its national inter-est forward. Its European politics became weaker, leaner, and meaner.6 The old Federal Republic of Germany by it modest politics had contributed a great deal to the bal-ance between small and big countries in Europe, and to good trans-Atlantic relations. The new Republic under Chancellor Schroeder chose not to follow the principles that for so long had been the foundation of German foreign policy. Atti tudes toward East Europe The “civilian power” policy was used also in relation to Central Europe after 1990. According to a German author, “The German com-mitment to multilateral organiza-tions and multilateral principles most clearly manifested itself in the pledge to support Czech and Polish efforts to join the European Union, Europe’ most important multilateral project.’7 Germany wanted to export stability and democracy. However that multilateralism

became very difficult, when real con-flicts of interest emerged. Germany faced a choice between East Central Europe and Russia. Relations with Poland had always been affected by those with Russia and vice versa. “Although the Czech-German bor-der is longer that the Polish-German border, Poland’s location between Germany and Russia augments its significance for both sides.”8 The dilemma had manifested it-self already when the NATO mem-bership of Poland and the other East Central European countries were being negotiated. Taking into ac-count the Russian position, Ger-many only very reluctantly sup-ported access for those countries. Chancellor Kohl said in one of his speeches in January 1994: “In the face of the desire for membership from our Eastern neighbors, NATO is confronted with a difficult ques-tion. We understand the desire for security and the fears of people in these countries. ….. But at the same time there are historically grown fears of isolation or encirclement in Russia. These fears we have to take seriously, too.”9 Within the Social Democratic Party of Germany or SPD, the proponents of enlargement were isolated for a long time.10 The Greens were against it. The Moscow faction was quite powerful. A con-sensus on enlargement was achieved in Germany after the Clinton Ad-ministration in the second half of 1994 started energetically to imple-ment enlargement. In the end, only some Greens voted in the Bundestag against the enlargement. Nevertheless, the German Chan-cellor oriented his whole strategy toward Russia. “Under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Ger-many followed a "Russia first" strat-egy, with Berlin giving priority to improving its ties, especially its eco-nomic ones, with Moscow. ….The most controversial aspect of this growing economic cooperation has been the agreement to build a gas pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea di-

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rectly connecting Germany and Rus-sia. The agreement was signed shortly before Schröder left office in September 2005. (He has since gone to work full-time for the Gazprom-led consortium building the pipe-line.) The deal provoked an outcry in Poland and the Baltic states because it would allow Russia to cut off the gas to these countries without affect-ing the supply to western Europe.”11 Although Chancellor Angela Merkel has pursued a less overtly pro-Russian policy than did Schröder, the change has largely been one of tone and style, not sub-stance. Characteristically enough, immediately after the recent contro-versial speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Munich, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticized the US plan to install an anti-missile system in Po-land and the Czech Republic. The Terrib le Twins How did it look from the Polish perspective as Germany regained sovereignty after 1989? In terms of economic power, Germany has the world’s third biggest economy, while Poland is in 25th place. German companies play an important role in the Polish economy. Some com-mentators think that relations be-tween Germany and Poland will be similar to those between the US and Mexico: ”The inevitable outcome would be the creation of an unequal relationship between rich leader and poor follower. Thus, in addition to the immense burdens of history, Ger-man-Polish relations have entered a phase of cryptocolonialism and neo-imperialism. This is nobody’s fault. It is a functional reality of the new Europe”.12 Others speak about Germany’s “benign multilateral hegemony,” based on accumulated stockpiles of trust and social capital, which Hans-

(Continued from page 9) Dietrich Genscher called Vetrauen-skapital. “Germany’s role in Central Europe is that of a ‘benign multilat-eral hegemon’.”13 Unfortunately in recent years that capital has vanished in Poland. Poland was not ready to confine itself to the role of cryptocol-ony. After the 2005 elections, the new Polish government began to express its ambitions to be a partner and not a mere object of civilianiza-tion. This is not easy, because Ger-many had built up a network of peo-ple and institutions in Poland to en-able it to pursue its policies there. During conflictual situations, they could explain and support German policy. The result is that Polish pub-lic opinion is very widely divided while German public opinion is quite homogenous. The Kaczynski brothers, Lech and Jarosław, were disliked in Ger-many from the very beginning. Al-ready during the last presidential campaign, the German press wrote broadly about allegedly strong anti-German accents in Lech Kaczynski’s presidential program. In reality, for-eign policy has played a rather minor role in that campaign, and both can-didates seem to agree on the main points. The only exception was a minor incident, when it was made known that the grandfather of the Civic Platform’s presidential candi-date, Donald Tusk, had served dur-ing World War II in the Wehrmacht. Still, the Germans should have known that there were reasons why for some Poles this could pose a problem. As the serving mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczyński became especially unpopular in Germany after he or-dered, in response to the demands of some expellee organizations, an ac-counting of the material losses of Warsaw during World War II. As a result, Poland today is accused of promoting a new nationalism that is damaging mutual relations. The Ger-man journal Der Spiegel wrote:

The new Polish right has dealt a blow to German-Polish rela-tions after four decades of steady improvement. In 1965 Polish bishops wrote to the German bishopric with the words: ‘We forgive and ask for forgiveness.’ In 1970 Willy Brandt knelt in front a War-saw memorial to the uprising in the Jewish ghetto. Nineteen years later, in Kreisau, chan-cellor Helmut Kohl and Ta-deusz Mazowiecki, Poland's first non-Communist prime minister, embraced each other. Since then, the network of economic relations has been growing and private and official contacts have grown closer all the time. But Po-land's old inferiority com-plexes haven't vanished with a return to the West. … In the meantime, not even friends of the twins will dare to come up with a constructive policy of reform, which is why picking on Germany as a common enemy will be popular for a while to come. ‘Unstable gov-ernments need an internal or external enemy in order to stay united,’ says one Warsaw government insider. Keeping up the anti-German rhetoric could well turn out to be risky: Surveys have showed again and again that Germans have a surprisingly positive image in Poland. The vast majority of Poles still believe that Ger-many is Poland's most impor-tant partner. In June, four out of five of those asked said they believed reconciliation be-tween the two peoples was still possible -- while in 1990 fewer than 50 percent of Poles held the same opinion.14

In this view, the sole reason for the deterioration of relations is Pol-ish irrational emotion: an inferiority

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complex, the need for an enemy, a way of legitimatizing an unstable government, irrational mistrust, na-tionalistic pride, the Kaczyńskis’ ob-sessions. A real difference of inter-ests and the new pro-Russian politics of Germany is not mentioned in this analysis. It looks a bit different from the American perspective. As we can read in Foreign Policy:

To allay eastern European anxiety, Germany needs to balance its strategic interest in economic cooperation with Russia with a more dynamic Ostpolitik. The centerpiece of this should be an intensified effort to improve relations with Poland, which have sig-nificantly deteriorated since the era of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and are badly in need of repair. Berlin should therefore make the improvement of relations with Warsaw a top priority. This effort at rapproche-ment, however, cannot be a

(Continued from page 10) one-way street. Poland also has to do its part. To date, the Polish leadership has shown little interest in reaching out to Germany. Such a policy, how-ever, is short-sighted. Warsaw cannot afford a go-it-alone strategy, especially at a time when Moscow is flexing its energy muscles. It needs allies, above all in Berlin.15

This is, of course, true. It remains only to convince Berlin that its “Russia-first” policy is a mistake and that true partnership, and not crypto-colonialism, is in the interest of both countries and all of Europe. End Notes:

1. Adrian Hyde/Price, Germany and European order. Enlarging NATO and the EU, Manchester and New York 2000, 216-217.

2. Wladyslaw Czaplinski, ‘The New Polish-German Treaties and the Changing Political Structure of Europe, The American Journal of Inter-national Law, vol. 86, no. 1 (Jan. 1992), 163-173.

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3. Andrei Markovits, Simon Reich, The German Predicament, Ithaca 1997, 2.

4. August Pradato, 23.

5. Hennig Tewes, Germany, Civilian Power and the New Europe, Houndmills and New York 2002, 11.

6. Sebastian Harnisch, Siegfried Schieder, Germany’s New European Pol-icy: Weaker, Leaner, Meaner, 95-108.

7. Claus Hofhansel, Multilateralism, German Foreign Policy and Central Europe, Routledge, London and New York 2005, 48.

8. Tewes, 154.

9. Quoted after Tewes, 178.

10. Tewes, 184.

11. F. Stephen Larrabee, Danger and Opportunity in Eastern Europe, For-eign Affairs, November/December 2006.

12. Andrei Markovits, Simon Reich, The German Predicament, 114.

13. Adrian Hyde/Price, Germany and European order, 211.

14. Jan Puhl, „Poles Apart,“ Der Spiegel, 23 Oktober 2006.

15. F. Stephen Larrabee, “Danger and Opportunity. in Eastern Europe.”

And lots more to come… :-) For more information, please contact the Polish Student Society at : mu2113@columbia.edu E

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The Polish Student Society Anticipated Events for the 2007-2008 Academic Year:

October : Polish American Heritage Month • 70th Annual Pulaski Day Parade: October 7th, 5th Avenue,

NYC • Polish Movie Night: On alternate Thursday nights • "Dinner for Leaders" - Networking dinner for Polish Club board

members and representatives of University’s from the tri-state area, organized by the Columbia Polish Student Society

November: • Organizing & hosting the

Chopin Piano Competition

December: • Hosting the 5th Annual

Wigilia Christmas Gathering

February: • Valentine's Day celebration with Hunters College • Mardi Gras/Tłusty czwartek celebration with Hunters and

NYU.

April: • Hosting the 5th Annual

Easter Gathering

East Central European Center Columbia University MC3336 420 West 118th Street New York, NY 10027

Please visit our website at: http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/regional/ECE/academics/regional/poland.html

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Thank You All For Your Generosity in Supporting The Polish Studies Program!

Zdzislaw Baran Stanley Czerwinski

Jadwiga Damiec & Janusz Dominik Edward K. Dzielewski Kosciuszko Foundation

Walter J. Morris Semper Polonia Foundation

Frank G. Serafin Elizabeth K. & Lisa Valkenier Archbishop Szczepan Wesoly

Polish Army Veterans Association Polish Slavic Federal Credit Union

Pulaski Association of Business and Professional Men

New Publication! Reflections on Polish Foreign Policy, 171 pages, 2007, avail-

able at $19.95 from the East Central European Center or the Pilsudski Institute.