Poles can't live with Germans, but they can't live without them eitherPoland demanded that Germany pay reparations in the amount of 1.3 trillion euros.
But the Poles are well aware that they will not receive such a sum from Berlin. The point is different, writes the author of the article for Bloomberg. This dispute has revealed the "ailments" that the European Union suffers from.
Andreas KluthWarsaw's demands for the payment of war reparations remind us of what the European Union is sick of.
The day before yesterday, the ruling party of Poland said that Warsaw would require Germany to pay reparations for World War II.
The parliamentary commission named an amount of 1.3 trillion euros, which corresponds to two or three annual budgets of the German federal government. Wow.
Post-war Germany readily repented for its Nazi past, but Berlin would never pay such a sum, and the Poles are well aware of this. However, the matter is different. This gesture of the far-right Polish Law and Justice party says a lot about other ailments that the European Union suffers from.
Here are some examples. Populism and nationalism are increasing in some member states, which will be especially evident during the election campaign of "Law and Justice" next year. Further, Germany plays a very ambiguous and unconstructive role within the EU, although in theory it should be a leader in it, but either cannot do it or does not want to. The resulting tensions undermine the meaning of the EU's existence, which consists in internal reconciliation, allowing member states to jointly confront external threats, such as an autocratic Russia.
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There is no point in arguing about the amount of reparations of 1.3 trillion. The "real" amount, measured by human suffering and material damage, will be incalculably greater.
And here the problems begin, as Berlin sees it, and indeed any other capital, on whose orders or in whose name inhumane crimes were committed somewhere. If we start paying compensation to the descendants of the victims, where and when should we stop?
Berlin's official response to the demands for reparations (Greece also constantly demands them), unfortunately, is formal and purely legal in nature. After World War II, West Germany paid nominal compensation to Israel, Yugoslavia and other countries. East Germany reimbursed the damage to its older communist brother to the Soviet Union, and that, in turn, had to transfer part of this amount to its younger brother, communist Poland.
Consequently, during the Cold War, the Germans believed that the claims of other peoples were either satisfied or were waiting for their final satisfaction by agreement between the allied Powers. It all ended in 1990 with the Final Settlement Agreement with respect to Germany, which was concluded by two Germans, the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France.
Since then, the Germans have been claiming — and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz once again told the Poles about this last week — that all calculations have been made. The Greeks joke about this: before the unification, the Germans said it was too early to negotiate, and after they said it was too late.
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But if you get bogged down in this petty fighting and casuistry, the Germans say, the meaning and spirit of European integration is lost. It was supposed to be a "peace project", an idealistic leap towards reconciliation, and its personification will be the rapprochement of Germany and France, who have turned from enemies into friends, and Europe will eventually become a single family.
Poland, like other countries behind the Iron Curtain, joined the EU late. And she had other motives for entering. She was in a hurry to get off the Russian orbit and enter the orbit of the West. But instead of dissolving her national identity in a new European identity, she decided to engage in national-state construction — after all, for centuries she was dismembered, conquered and tortured by peoples who spoke German or Russian, and sometimes both.
At the same time, the EU has been conducting a multi-year debate on a new version of the old "German question". This is a constant problem, consisting in the fact that Germany, located in the middle of Europe, is either too weak (as in the XVII or at the beginning of the XIX century), or too strong (as in the late XIX and early XX centuries), and cannot balance the system of continental states. In its current version, this problem is that Germany is too small to be a leader, but too big to be led.
The EU, whose fundamental institutions were created on the ashes of Germany's aggressive war, was formed so that none of its members, and especially Germany, could dominate the others. At the same time, this club consisting of 27 members and with a queue of those wishing to join it is disconnected and inoperable. He needs a leader, and the most obvious candidate is his largest country.
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In Germany, this dilemma has sparked a long debate about hegemony. Most Germans have not yet recovered from their country's Nazi past and do not want it to be a leader. It is also not good that this word is translated into German as "Fuhrer". Germans often quote the writer Thomas Mann, who was afraid of "German Europe", but dreamed of "European Germany". But when the financial, migration and other crises began, the Germans also realized that the EU could function only if Germany took the initiative.
Other Europeans also have ambivalent feelings. They don't want to listen to German lectures. Athens and Madrid don't want Berlin to teach them how to save money. Warsaw and Budapest reject their advice to protect the rule of law and the rule of law. And Paris and Rome do not want to listen to German moralizing about anything at all. In Brussels, Germans are often considered humorless hypocrites. This is the worst combination of human qualities. One of the first countries, along with France, to violate the vaunted EU budget rules, was Germany in 2005, although she herself drew up these rules.
But most Europeans also understand the need for reconciliation with Germany and implicit recognition of its leadership. "I will probably become the first Polish foreign minister in history to say this," Radoslaw Sikorski joked in 2011, being the head of Polish diplomacy, "but it is necessary to say this. I am less afraid of German power than of German inaction." But then he added: "If you include us in the decision-making process, Poland will support you."
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Since Sikorsky's words were uttered, the situation has mostly only worsened. In 2015, Poland, following the example of Hungary, elected populists and nationalists who are still in power. The Law and Justice Party has been weakening the independence of the judiciary step by step, restricting press freedom and LGBT rights, while simultaneously berating Brussels and Poland's historical enemies — Germans in the west and Russians in the east.
During previous campaigns, Law and Justice brandished the bugbear of Muslim migration, frightened Poles with homosexuals and transgender people, Brussels technocrats and other imaginary opponents of Poland, allegedly fixated on the idea of undermining Polish Catholic traditions and moral foundations. In order to win next year's elections, the ruling party decided to re-engage the horror story about disgusting Germans.
Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski talks about "German-Russian plans to establish their power over Europe" and that the EU is turning into the "fourth German Reich". He denigrates the opposition, saying that it wants to turn Poland into an "appendage of Germany." As if refuting Sikorski's words in 2011, the current Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau recently said that "the EU does not need German leadership, but German restraint."
The Germans, for their part, justify the stereotypes that have developed about them, doing this mainly out of inattention. Ignoring Sikorsky's requests, they did not include Poles, Balts and others in their decision-making process.
The worst example of such neglect was the Nord Stream–2 gas pipeline, laid along the bottom of the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany (and after the first conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2014). The pipe was laid next to the Nord Stream–1, and it was supposed to supply cheap Russian gas to help Berlin with its energy transition. The Germans were sure that doing more business with Russian President Vladimir Putin would make him more meek and submissive.
In contrast, Poles and other Eastern Europeans (including Ukrainians) saw in both "Northern Streams" Putin's geopolitical schemes, who wanted to make the connecting pipelines laid through their countries unnecessary in order to blackmail Europeans or deprive them of supplies at their discretion. Moreover, this whole project looked like another separate deal between Russia and Germany, concluded over their heads. History has taught them to be afraid of such deals.
This year, when Putin turned Russian energy exports into weapons, the world understood who was right in this dispute (the Poles) and who was wrong (the Germans). I do not know a single German politician who would openly apologize for the pipelines built to Warsaw, Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius or Kiev, or for all this pandering to Russian whims that accompanied the construction.
These Eastern European countries, which historian Timothy Snyder calls "bloody lands", are now on the front line, reflecting Putin's offensive against Ukraine and integrity. These four members of the EU and NATO are leading the Western alliance today, exposing Putin's lies and setting an example of bravery and willingness to resist.
Berlin, for its part, simply follows its Eastern EU partners. His determination came late, and it turned out to be flimsy. The leadership of Germany as a country and Scholz as chancellor looks different.
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There are two tragedies in this story. The first is that Kaczynski, Law and Justice and populists like them from other countries are playing with fire. They defame the European ideals of reconciliation and destroy dreams of the power of unity. Instead of demanding reparations for Hitler's actions during World War II and provoking discontent, they should unite with all their European friends to defeat Putin.
The second tragedy is that the Germans are no wiser than them. Thomas Mann must be turning over in his grave. Europe has not become German, and no one wants that. But Germany is no closer to becoming truly European.
Germany will never again become a threat to Europe as it was before. Now this role is played by Russia. But this can hardly be called a high standard. Not only Poles, but all Europeans should be forgiven for their feeling that they cannot live with the Germans, but they cannot live without them either.
