Ryszard Galla, the leader of the German minority in Poland, gave an interview to the portal dw.com. The German politician expressed satisfaction with Tusk’s “restoration of normality” in regard to the rights of his minority, although he still expects more. At the same time, Galla sharply attacked Law and Justice (PiS) and President Karol Nawrocki.
“(…) I can speak of a return to normality. An example of this is the decision of the Minister of National Education to restore the number of hours of German language instruction as a mother tongue for the German minority to the same level as for other minorities. What MP Janusz Kowalski proposed to take away from us, and what was indeed taken away, has now been reinstated. Cooperation with the government is currently very good,” Galla said, though he immediately presented further demands. This time (at least for now) it is not about Gdańsk or a corridor through Pomerania.
“I won’t hide that, as the German minority, we would like to have schools that teach in two languages or even with German as the language of instruction,” he demanded, lamenting that so far “even in bilingual institutions, there are still, I believe, four subjects that must continue to be taught in both languages” [Polish and German – editor’s note].
Galla lamented that the minority he represents continues to struggle with issues of identity – a situation he, of course, blames on Law and Justice (PiS).
“In recent years, when PiS was in power, the situation in this regard worsened. This anti-German sentiment made society return, as it were, to the years shortly after the war, when it took courage to admit one’s German origin,” the German politician said in a rather peculiar statement.
Ryszard Galla and the minority he represents do not intend to limit themselves to defending only the particular interests of Germans. He sees himself as a representative of all “minorities,” particularly – as one may sense – the Silesian one.
“Soon, the bill on the Silesian language will once again be debated. I think there will be a problem with that as well,” Galla complained, referring to President Karol Nawrocki’s veto of an amendment that would have recognized the “Wilamowicean language” as a regional language.
A German politician posing as a defender of national minority rights in Poland is a rather peculiar figure.
It is worth recalling that across the Oder, the decree of the German Council of Ministers of 27 February 1940, signed by Marshal of the Third Reich Hermann Göring, is still formally in force. It ordered the dissolution of all organizations of the Polish national minority in the Reich and the confiscation of their property. The late lawyer Stefan Hambura, who represented Polish organizations in Germany, emphasized that the consequences of this decree are still felt today despite numerous appeals to the highest German authorities.
As the portal pressmania.pl reminds, “it is important to note the clear difference in the treatment of the German minority in Poland compared to the treatment of the Polish minority in Germany. Poland invests significantly more in German-language education on its territory than Germany does in Polish education. Only 3 percent of young Poles in Germany have access to learning Polish as their mother tongue, whereas in Poland, German-language education is available to a much larger number of German students, especially in the Opole region.”
Such was also the case under the Law and Justice (PiS) government – the very one so heavily criticized by the German politician Galla.