Abstract
As we noted in the previous two chapters, for years the position and existence of Germans in Upper Silesia and other parts of Poland was one of the issues which dogged bilateral relations between Warsaw and Bonn. After the two sides eventually established formal diplomatic relations in 1970, one of the fruits of this tentative rapprochement was that between 1970 and 1988 over 550,000 people claiming adherence to the Deutschtum were allowed to leave Poland. From 1988 the changed political climate in Poland resulted in recognition on the part of the government that Poland did in fact possess an ethnic German minority. However, we also need to note that the fall of communism prompted a further exodus of Germans from Poland to Germany, and that this exodus coupled with the changed political climate in Poland prompted a rethink in Bonn of its policy toward (the future of) this minority.
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