The foreign minister in Tusk’s government decided this time – on an anniversary occasion, marking the Greater Poland Uprising – to “lecture” the President of the Republic of Poland. Radek Sikorski attempted to ridicule a speech by Karol Nawrocki, who during the ceremonies in Poznań, referring to historical memory, pointed to the need to defend the entire territory of the Republic of Poland – including the western border. For Sikorski, there is no threat, not even a potential one, from beyond the Oder – as long as, he stresses, Germany is governed by “democratic groupings” – the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union or the Social Democratic Party of Germany. By expressing such views, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not only presented himself as a disastrous, short-sighted politician, but also as a man lacking basic historical knowledge. The latter may be surprising if one recalls that at the head of the government in which Mr. Radek serves stands a historian – Master of Arts Donald Tusk. Tusk himself, incidentally, also clumsily attempted to attack the President of the Republic of Poland on the occasion of the Greater Poland Uprising. As usual, it came off pathetically. Let us admit, however, that the anniversary of a victorious uprising against Germany may be painful for a laureate of the Walther Rathenau Prize.
“I would like to reassure Mr. President that as long as Germany is in NATO and the EU, and is governed by Christian or social democrats, the threat to our western border is nonexistent. It could only arise if europhobic nationalists were to take power beyond the Oder,” Sikorski proudly announced today on his social media profile.
One does not need to dig long in history to demonstrate the falsity of the thesis put forward by the current head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MSZ). Threats from Germany are posed not only by groupings that may be described as extreme (it is curious, by the way, that Sikorski suggests they can only be of so-called “far-right” provenance, somehow “forgetting” about openly pro-Russian far-left groupings). The first proof is… the Greater Poland Uprising itself, which broke out on 27 December 1918. The insurgents striving to liberate the western borderlands fought at that time against the forces of “democratic” Germany, ruled by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) leader Friedrich Ebert. The social democrats, like all other German “democratic” groupings, throughout the entire period of the so-called Weimar Republic (until 1933, i.e., Hitler’s assumption of power) denied Poland’s right to the Poznań region, Silesia, and that part of Pomerania which fell to the Second Polish Republic (II RP). Let us recall a few other facts that the December 13 coalition clearly does not wish to remember.
In 1920, counting on the collapse of the Second Polish Republic (II RP) under the Bolshevik onslaught, “democratic” Germany blocked the transport of weapons to Polish soldiers and then provided assistance to Soviet troops who, during their retreat, crossed the border of East Prussia. In 1925, the “democrat” and “liberal” Chancellor Hans Luther launched a multi-year customs war with Poland, aimed at collapsing the economy of the Republic of Poland and forcing territorial changes favorable to Germany. This war, it is worth emphasizing, Poland won, despite the fact that at its outset trade with Germany accounted for nearly half of Poland’s foreign trade volume, with Germany being the recipient of nearly 80 percent of the coal extracted in Poland. We prevailed because the government of Władysław Grabski, after Germany unilaterally halted imports of Polish coal from the Silesian Voivodeship, raised customs duties on Polish products, and imposed an embargo on part of the goods imported from the Second Polish Republic (II RP), responded with analogous retaliatory measures.
How would Tusk’s government behave in such a situation? This is merely a rhetorical question – we have already known the answer for at least two years.
Why do we write “at least”? Because as early as May 2012, Tusk was awarded the Walther Rathenau Prize, named after another German “democrat” (a leader of the German Democratic Party), distinguished for combating Poland and developing German-Soviet friendship. As foreign minister of the Weimar Republic, Rathenau signed the Rapallo Treaty with communist Russia on 16 April 1922, which in its secret provisions initiated military cooperation between the two states. Its edge was anti-Polish in character. “Our prime minister,” however, saw nothing inappropriate in accepting an award bearing the name of a patron hostile to Poland.
Does Sikorski see anything inappropriate in this today? Certainly not, which is hardly surprising when one observes the political “somersaults” he has been performing since 2007.
Over these years, Sikorski has traveled a very long road – from comparing the construction of Nord Stream 2 to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact to co-participation (even before the USA, as Olejnik emphasized in one of her programs) in the reset policy with Russia, which in the past cooperated openly and exemplary with Germany.
Germany – any Germany – must be viewed without illusions. Even its “democratic” version sought, seeks, and will continue to seek cooperation with Russia. Cooperation with Russia, “as it is.” Sikorski should know this phrase very well.