Is the deputy head of Donald Tusk’s Chancellery seeking to have Professor Stanisław Żerko—an outstanding historian and arguably the best-known Polish scholar dealing with German affairs—dismissed from his position at the Western Institute in Poznań? Professor Żerko believes there are grounds for such concerns. The academic posted messages on his social media profile in which, among other things, he directly addressed the Secretary of State at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Jakub Stefaniak, posing a very simple and concrete question on the matter.
“Mr Secretary of State at @PremierRP, Mr @Stefaniak__—was it you, as the supervisor of @IZPoznan, who personally instructed my superior to ‘put me in order’? I received an official letter on this matter just before Christmas and have 14 days to respond,” the scholar asked in one of the posts, so far waiting in vain for any reaction from Stefaniak, a member of the Polish People’s Party (PSL).
Professor Stanisław Żerko has for years been known for his independent judgments, expressed, among other things, in his uncompromising stance toward every government. When the United Right was in power, the academic repeatedly criticized its actions, including in the area of media policy. After Tusk’s coalition took office, Professor Żerko likewise did not turn a blind eye to what he believed deserved negative assessment.
However, while Law and Justice (PiS) accepted the scholar’s criticism with appropriate distance and calm—making no attempt to combat either the historian or the institutions with which he was and remains associated—the governments led by Tusk reacted far more nervously to Professor Żerko’s conduct.
This was already the case during Tusk’s first terms in office (2007–2014), when the scholar strongly opposed Civic Platform’s policy aimed at effectively dismantling the Western Institute. “Had PO not been removed from power in 2015, the Western Institute would no longer exist today,” the academic wrote in 2024. According to him, the pro-German authorities resented the Institute for conducting research into the most recent history of Germany and Polish-German relations.
“I personally debated with Minister Radosław Sikorski, who during a visit to the Institute in June 2008 argued that we should abandon historical issues. In the view of the then head of Polish diplomacy, Polish-German relations should focus on the present and the future, not the past. Clashes over this continued in subsequent years, when at meetings of the Scientific Council representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized, for example, our work on population expulsions during World War II. Even the multi-volume series prepared at the Institute a few years ago, assessing twenty years of reunified Germany, was dismissed as an anachronism. I cited examples in an article published more than three years ago in Rzeczpospolita (‘The Gutting of the Western Institute,’ December 16, 2012), which in fact had very unpleasant consequences for me,” Professor Żerko recalled years ago (quoted by wpolityce.pl).
When Donald Tusk returned to power in 2023, the scholar from the Western Institute-like millions of Poles-quickly realized that his legendary vindictiveness (copyright Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Ryszard Kalisz) had not faded. Professor Żerko criticized the new authorities’ approach to the Western Institute, including, among other things, the co-optation to the Institute’s Council of the deputy director of the Deutsches Polen-Institut in Darmstadt. “I am simply wondering whether it is normal for a deputy director of a German think tank to have influence over the activities of a Polish state think tank specializing in German studies,” Professor Żerko asked rhetorically.
The Professor’s assessment met with sharp criticism from those in power and their media propagandists, which intensified further after Żerko’s scathing evaluation of the results of Tusk’s visit to Chancellor Merz.
“If the German side invokes reconciliation with Poland, ethics in foreign policy, and values in international relations, it should try to rid itself of hypocrisy and acknowledge that it has a certain debt to repay to its eastern neighbor,” Professor Żerko said, referring to Germany’s proposed ‘reparations’ for Poland, which in practice amount to the construction of a Polish-German House in Berlin.
Stanisław Żerko is known for uncompromising judgments and assessments directed at every government and its allies alike. On his private social media profile he has already taken aim, among others, at a ‘minister’ for climate policy and at a well-known actor and academic fascinated with Tusk-calling into question, let us say, their intellectual abilities.
Recently, something else happened as well. “Once again I have to explain myself. The youth wing of Neo-ZSL (Forum of Young People’s Party activists) reported me to the director of the Instytut Zachodni im. Zygmunta Wojciechowskiego, alleging that I equated the minister of war and their leader, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, with the Syrian dictator and war criminal Bashar al-Assad. This is, of course, nonsense. On Twitter I merely joked about the physical resemblance of the two gentlemen. I was not the first to do so; such jokes have circulated in various memes for over ten years. I have two weeks to respond to the allegations. ‘Idiots, idiots everywhere…’,” we read on the Professor’s Facebook page.
“An insult to blood must be avenged,” one might be tempted to recall an old saying at this point. The December 13 Coalition prepared a Christmas ‘gift’ for the unruly scholar. The ‘recipient’ himself informed about it-in the post quoted at the beginning of this article.
“Mr Secretary of State @Stefaniak__ – as the supervisor of the Western Institute at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister – do I really have to explain that my posts are private in nature and do not express the position of @IZPoznan?” Professor Stanisław Żerko reminded.
Will this have any effect?