Poland and West Germany: A Belated Détente?

Abstract

Some twenty-five years after the end of the second world war, relations between Poland and Germany are still far from satisfactory. The German Federal Republic does not recognize Poland's western boundary; there are no diplomatic ties between the two countries; and until very recently the climate between Warsaw and Bonn was cool, if not openly antagonistic. The Polish-German dispute remains one of the major unresolved problems in Europe and, indeed, in east-west relations. In the past few months, however, there have been signs of a major thaw between Bonn and Warsaw. The Poles abandoned their polemical posture vis-a-vis West Germany and in May 1969 the Polish communist leader, Wladyslaw Gomulka, made an offer to the GFR to try to resolve the contentious issues between the two countries by direct negotiation. In November the new West German government, led by Chancellor Willy Brandt, responded favourably to Gomulka's appeal and by February 1970 the Polish-German talks were under way. There is little doubt that the forthcoming PolishWest German negotiations are going to be difficult. Few countries approach the task of normalizing their relations with worse credentials than Poland and Germany. The tragic historical experiences and the existence of an unresolved territorial dispute, added to membership in two antagonistic alliances, breed distrust on both sides and stand in the way of reconciliation. Past attempts to overcome differences have been singularly unsuccessful. Since the mid-1950s when the gfr assumed responsibility for its own external affairs and Poland regained at least some freedom of manoeuver in international politics the two countries have been conspicuously unable to attune their respective foreignpolicy advances and retreats to the same cycle. Advances from one side have encountered a retreat from the other, with the result that German-Polish relations have neither contributed to, nor indeed have they been affected by, the partial detente which meanwhile has emerged in eastwest relations.1 1 / For a comprehensive review of Polish-German relations in the 1950s and the