Hard to tell if Poland wants Germany to be “ally or scapegoat”, says German ambassador

It is hard to tell whether Poland’s government wants Germany to be an “ally” or a “scapegoat”, says the outgoing German ambassador to Warsaw, adding that he is “unable to understand the logic” of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party’s approach to its western neighbour.

In an interview with Polish daily Rzeczpospolita, Ambassador Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven also repeated his country’s position that the issue of war reparations – which PiS claims Germany still owes Poland – is “closed” as far as Berlin is concerned.

“In PiS circles, there has long been a very clear tendency to publicly attack Germany in order to win favour with the right-wing electorate at the expense of good Polish-German relations,” said Loringhoven, who the German foreign ministry this month confirmed will soon leave his post.

“I ask myself, what intentions do the current authorities in Warsaw have? Do they want Germany to be a strong ally of Poland, or do they need us to be a scapegoat for their own internal problems?” he added.

The ambassador claimed that “relations have become even more difficult” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This is especially disturbing as Russia tries to take advantage of every divide in the West,” he warned. “I am therefore unable to understand the logic of such actions.”

PiS has often been critical of Germany. Jarosław Kaczyński, the party’s chairman and Poland’s most powerful politician, said last year that the EU is becoming a “Fourth Reich” under German dominance. In 2020, he warned that the opposition wants to turn Poland into “an appendage of Germany”.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading figures in Poland’s ruling camp have criticised various aspects of Germany’s response to the war. Both the president, Andrzej Duda, and prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, have accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz of prioritising economic interests over the lives of Ukrainians.

Last month, Duda also accused Berlin of reneging on a promise to give tanks to Poland to replace those Warsaw has donated to Ukraine. The German government denies this, saying that Poland has made unrealistic demands for the most modern tanks.

PiS has also long argued that Germany still owes Poland a large amount – potentially hundreds of billions of dollars – in reparations for the destruction it caused during its occupation in the Second World War.

“PiS no longer talks about reconciliation, only the issues of guilt and reparations,” Loringhoven told Rzeczpospolita. “The attacks on Germany are asymmetrical: I do not recall any example during my mission here of the German authorities publicly putting Poland in the pillory in a similar way.”

“Here it is necessary to separate the legal aspect, reparations – where, from the point of view of Germany, the matter is closed – from the moral dimension, where the balance of tragic history and the burden of German sins will always remain present,” he added.

Berlin argues that Poland formally renounced its claim to reparations in 1953. However, leading figures in PiS have argued that that is not the case, and also note that Poland was under communist rule at the time and not independent.

Loringhoven said he feared that PiS’s criticism of Germany would intensify ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections. But he warned that the policy of exerting public pressure on Germany – for example over sanctions against Russia or the teaching of the German national minority – is “counterproductive”.

“Such matters should be discussed in privacy,” he argued. “If they are brought out into the open, it is much more difficult to get Germany, like any other partner, to be flexible.”

However, the ambassador also noted that relations between citizens of the two countries are increasingly favourable and that Duda and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier are positively disposed towards each other.

During a visit by Steinmeier to Warsaw last year, Duda likened the relationship between the two countries to two neighbouring farmers who sometimes have disputes but are still prepared to marry off their children to one another.

“In the face of Russia’s bloody aggression, we should concentrate on what is most important now: building a strong, cohesive West, a strong Europe,” said Loringhoven. “A strong West is not possible without close cooperation between Poland and Germany.”

Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.