On the eve of the 78th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, the German Foreign Ministry admitted that Germany is responsible for World War Two crimes in Poland.
The German Foreign Ministry wrote in a statement to PAP that the German government attached great importance to the commemoration of the victims of German WWII crimes in Poland and that Germany had been responsible for these crimes.
This has found reflection in a coalition agreement envisaging a plan to create remembrance sites in Berlin as well as to hold meetings with Poles, the German Foreign Ministry wrote in a response to a PAP question regarding the commemoration of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising’s victims.
On August 1, flags on all German diplomatic missions in Poland will be lowered to half-mast in honour of the victims of German crimes in Poland, and their representatives will attend observances of the 78th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising’s outbreak in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Gdansk, the ministry wrote.
The Warsaw Uprising was the largest underground military operation in German-occupied Europe. On August 1, 1944, around 40,000-50,000 insurgents took part in the fighting. Planned to last several days, the uprising eventually lasted over two months.
During the fighting in Warsaw, about 18,000 insurgents lost their lives and 25,000 were wounded. Losses among the civilian population were huge and amounted to approx. 180,000. After the Warsaw Uprising was crushed, about 500,000 surviving residents were forced to evacuate and Warsaw was almost completely razed to the ground.