Polish Reply to German President's speech

Freenations recently published the translation of President Rau's speech to the Association of German Expellees. Here the Polish President Kvasnievski responds to this and other German attempts to re-assert their influence and control over Polish territory.

Date of Report 17 September 2003
Translated 17 September 2003

WARSAW - The Polish President Kvasnievski has reacted sharply against attempts in Germany to denounce some of the agreements of the Potsdam Treaty. Whoever characterises the resettlement of Germans as "Wrong and
Unjust" puts the post war order of Europe into question and is opening a "Pandora's box". So said President Kvasnievski in an article for the Polish daily paper "Rceczpospolita". "It must be remembered" he wrote "how the
difficulties of our continent, which led to the outbreak of the Second World War, began with the undermining of the Treaty of Versailles".

Kvasnievski was particularly concerned with the debate about a "Centre against Expulsions". The German initiators of this project wanted to assert the opinion that the post war resettlement of Germans from Eastern Europe
was "Wrong and unjust". At present the German Minister of the Interior is trying to create unity over some contested details which have previously obstructed the building of the Centre. A few days previously the German
Federal President had attacked the victorious powers of the Second World War, accusing them of "Dreadful wrong" (concerning the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe).

"DISCOVERING A NEW IDENTITY"

In contrast Kvasnievski called attention to the previously uncontested legality of the Potsdam Treaty and related agreements, on which the resettlement of Germans were based. "Today Germans are in an important phase
of finding a new identity" said the Polish President, as he warned against a revision of history. "The tearing up of the historical connection between cause and effect, between the aggressive policy of German Nazism and the
expulsions (...) brings us inexorably close to the suspicion that we have to deal with an attempt to revise the historical assessment of German aggression in comparison with others".

See also
"Menschenrecht auf Heimat weltweit sichern" und Zugzwang sowie "Getarnte Rueckkehr des deutshen Drangs nach Osten"

Total revision

SOURCES

Przeciw Europie narodowych animozji : Rzeczpospolita 15.09.2003
"Gegen ein Europa nationaler Feindseligkeiten". Praesident Kwasniewski
erklaert seinend Widerstnd gegen ein moegliches "Zentrum gegen
Vertreibungen" in Berlin; Deutsche Welle Monitor Ost-/Suedoseuropa
16.09.2003