FRANKFURT, Dec. 22 — In a sign of how badly German-Polish relations have
frayed in recent months, a long-shot lawsuit by an obscure German claims
group has prompted
Poland to call into question a treaty
meant to settle forever the borders between the countries.
The Polish foreign minister, Anna Fotyga, raised doubts about the treaty
in a radio interview last Tuesday, a week after a group representing
Germans expelled from present-day Poland after World War II filed suit
at the
European Court of Human Rights, seeking
restitution of their property.
Though Ms. Fotyga has since backed away from suggestions that the treaty
be renegotiated, she said Poland would push for a “legal solution” that
“will respect the truth and the historical responsibility.”
In a statement issued Thursday, she condemned the German claims as “an
attempt at reversing moral responsibility for the effects of World War
II, which began with the German attack on Poland, and caused irreparable
losses and sufferings to the Polish state and nation.”
Germans and Poles have squabbled over a lot of things in the past year,
not least a new gas pipeline that
Germany and Russia are building under
the Baltic Sea, bypassing Poland. But the dispute this week was a
reminder of how much of the ill will still hinges on their tragic shared
history.
Germany brushed aside the need to renegotiate the 16-year-old treaty
signed by Berlin and Warsaw after the fall of Communism. The treaty
confirmed the post-World War II borders between the countries and
foreclosed any claims by the German state on territory lost to Poland
after the war.
The trouble is, the treaty did not deal with claims made by individuals.
These new claims have reopened old wounds in Poland, where some people
accuse Germans of trying to create a moral equivalence between the
suffering of Germans and the suffering they inflicted on others.
The German government said it did not support the claims of the group,
known as the Prussian Trust, but it also did not plan to impede them,
since displaced Germans are an influential constituency here.
After the end of World War II, more than 12 million Germans were
expelled from territories that are now part of Poland and other Eastern
European countries. The Federation of Expellees, the main lobbying group
for these people, has kept the issue alive in Germany, sponsoring an
exhibit in Berlin last summer that also provoked outrage on the part of
Polish leaders.
But even the federation has kept its distance from the Prussian Trust,
which filed 22 claims with the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,
France. Critics here said the group — which is small and consists
largely of people who were expelled from the former Silesia — had
reactionary tendencies.
Rudi Pawelka, a retired policeman who is the director of the Prussian
Trust, said its goal was both symbolic and concrete. “We want the
injustice of our expulsion to be recognized, and for there to be
compensation,” he said in an interview. “And there the question of
property ownership becomes relevant.”
Mr. Pawelka said the Prussian Trust chose to file claims with the Court
of Human Rights because other displaced groups had successfully pressed
their cases there. Poland, as a member of the
European Union, would also be subject
to any decision handed down by the court, he said.
German officials said the lawsuit was hopeless, and would only
antagonize Polish officials — a point that seemed indisputable, given
the statements by the foreign minister and the twin brothers who govern
Poland, President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Some analysts said there was little that Germany could do but try to
stay above the fray. The Kaczynski brothers, they said, were exploiting
anti-German sentiment to fuel a new wave of Polish nationalism.
The government of Chancellor Angela Merkel has tried to support Poland
in other ways, including its running conflict with Russia over Moscow’s
ban on Polish meat products. That ban has led Poland to delay a broader
partnership agreement between Russia and Europe.
Some experts on German-Polish relations said the vitriol of Poland’s
leaders masked what was a generally healthy relationship on other
levels. Trade between Germany and Poland is busy, and there are many
exchanges between academics, students, and legislative officials.