Great speech delivered by the President of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski in the German Parliament: „Freedom and integration only possible by working together”. Text follows... Dear Friends, The Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Canberra is pleased to enclose a speech delivered by the President of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski in the German Parliament: „Freedom and integration only possible by working together”. Best regards, Embassy of the Republic of Poland 7 Turrana Street Yarralumla ACT 2600 phone: (+61 2) 62721000 fax: (+61 2)62733184 canberra.msz.gov.pl Follow us on Twitter ! PLinAustralia @PLinAustralia Paweł Milewski @MilewskiP Distinguished Federal President, Distinguished President of the Bundestag, Distinguished Madam Chancellor, Distinguished Ladies and Gentleman of the House, Ladies and Gentlemen, Being in the heart of the German democracy, I am greatly and sincerely moved to be addressing today the Bundestag as President of free and democratic Poland. The very fact that I can speak here, at the heart of the German state, a state close to Poland and friendly to Poland, the fact that I am doing so on the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, is a profound emotion. It gives me a sense of felicity; the felicity I and my generation feel, given the nightmare of war and of Polish-German hatred that our parents had gone through. This moment makes me think with pride about the achievements that our generation have made on the road to reconciliation, the road to restoration of our mutual proximity and capability to cooperate. We recall the fact, as we always should, that in September 1939, 75 years ago, gunfire from the battleship Schleswig-Holstein at the Westerplatte Peninsula in Gdańsk, together with air raid sirens across Poland announced the beginning of a disaster, not only for my country but indeed for the entire Europe. At that time, the atrocious World War II began. Remembering September 1, we will never forget about September 17 either, when Polish territories were invaded by Soviet troops allied with Hitler’s Germany. The war brought with it gruesome death for tens of millions of people and a grim fate that befell hundreds of millions of innocent civilians. The fear of those days, organized terror and systematically organized mass murdering of people who were deemed to be ‘under men’ in a demented ideology, continues to be present in our European memory. The times symbolized by the Holocaust and by the planned destruction of intellectual elites of conquered nations continue to be present in our memories. Almost every Polish family, including my own, experienced not only the heroic combat but also the horror of round-ups, the degradation of camps and the brutality of displacements and mass executions. It should be likewise remembered that finally, misfortune and suffering befell not only the victims of the aggression but also the societies in the states which initiated the aggression. This makes us look with even greater admiration at the people committed to Polish-German reconciliation: the Polish bishops who wrote the famous letter about mutual forgiveness to the German bishops in 1965 responding to the discussion unfolding among Germans Christians. We must remember about people active in the Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste /Action Reconciliation Service for Peace /, about politicians: Willy Brandt, Helmut Kohl, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, or Władysław Bartoszewski. It was Władysław Bartoszewski, a former Auschwitz inmate, then member of Zegota, an organization which belonged to the Polish underground state and which provided assistance to Jews, subsequently many-years’ prisoner of Stalin-time prisons, but also, as I always emphasize with great pride, my fellow inmate as we were interned during the martial law. When he was addressing Honourable Members of the House here, he spoke about important things, things to be remembered. Nineteen years ago, he noted: “Polish-German relations have nowadays acquired their European dimension, our neighbourhood will largely predetermine whether and when Europe, once divided, will manage to grow together again. Cooperation of both states in the united Europe is today, as he went on to say, one of the principal goals and justifications to bilateral relations”. The full reconciliation followed later, as a crowning glory of many years’ efforts to make a new beginning in Polish-German relations; it happened when we regained our freedom, largely due to the struggle of our “Solidarity”; a new era of shared good fortune in Poland and in Germany, which was ushered in by the 1989 transformation. This was truly a unique period of time: when Tadeusz Mazowiecki was Prime Minister of Poland, a country so ardently craving for freedom; the first non-communist head of government in our part of Europe; and when cracks started appearing on the Berlin Wall dividing the German nation and dividing Europe as well. I can recall late September 1989, when refugees from East Germany started coming in to Poland. Back then, we had no border with any state of the West but the Germans from the East were right supposing that changes proceeding in Poland would give them hope for freedom and also for getting through to West Germany. For us in Poland, facilitating their passage was a valid experience, a signal the fatality that in Polish-German relations can be overcome. That free Poles and free Germans can come to terms with each other and can cooperate. In the “Solidarity” era in Poland, we followed with great appreciation all of those brave people who were capable of taking the risk to pour out on the street in East Germany and to demand respect of civil rights. “Wir sind das Volk” – “We are the nation” – that slogan was a calling for recognition of subjectivity of citizens and their sovereignty vis a vis state authorities. Roland Jahn, nowadays Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records in East Germany, and back then a young opposition activist recalled years after that in the break-through fall of 1989, “Solidarity was marching along with us along the Lepizig Ring”. We in Poland followed with hope the prayers and protests staged around St. Nicolaus Church in Leipzig. We knew that a lasting success of freedom can be only secured together. Together with the people from that Church we prayed for freedom, for our common cause. This was not only a victory of diplomacy or of political alliances. What really transformed Europe those days was the will of societies: the will of people craving for freedom. Our nations have not wasted that historical opportunity. The last twenty five years is an almost incredible story of building a united Europe: jointly by Poles and Germans alike. It is a unique reconciliation story where remembering about millions of graves, about ashes rising from crematory chimneys and about the charred remains of Warsaw, but also ruins of Berlin, we draw on the glorious tradition of 1989 and build and shall build new hope for Europe and the world. And today, in full realization of the whole bitter and cruel 20th century history of nations of Central and Eastern Europe, but also of its glorious moments, I am standing before you, Ladies and Gentlemen, to give testimony to the miracle of reconciliation, to the exceptional reality in which young generations of Poles and Germans can for the very first time in two centuries learn together and work together, together build the future of nations of the united Europe. I am happy to see that we want to jointly commemorate this Copernican revolution in the history of Polish-German relations, as exemplified by the symbolic fragment of the Gdansk Shipyard Wall in the vicinity of the Reichstag or the idea of the Freedom Motorway which will soon connect, physically but also symbolically, Warsaw and Berlin. I thank you wholeheartedly for the gestures shown not only to the Polish Solidarity but also to all who dreamt about Polish-German reconciliation and cooperation. My words of thanks go to my friends: Federal President Joachim Gauck and President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert. I thank all free Germans! Ladies and Gentlemen This year, the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I coincides with the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. A distance of merely one generation separates the two wars. Noteworthy is that the two European generations so painfully afflicted by the wars, drew entirely different conclusions from the catastrophes they had gone through. After World War I, Europe went ahead to enhance national egoisms, to dwell on divergences in national interests, strengthening the endeavour to revise the results of the war, and to take revenge for the defeat experienced. Those phenomena were conducive to the spread of the left-wing and the right-wing extremism, the emergence of authoritarian and totalitarian systems. It took as much as the tragedy of World War II to make Europe reverse to what unites European nations and not to what divides us: to integration, to the strengthening of free market and democracy, to security founded on welfare, and cooperation with neighbours. The success of European integration had its roots in European culture, in a similar understanding of the role of the man in the world. It is personalism that constitutes the core of European culture. Personalism can be derived from Christianity which created the concept of a human being who understands oneself as a person. It can be likewise derived from the Enlightenment tradition when it was accurately described by Immanuel Kant. What unites Europeans is their persuasion of inalienable dignity of every human being. In line with that conviction we must build whole education and legislation, shape economic life and institutions. Centred on personalism, we should build today a possibly broadest “anthropological coalition” of a kind, which recognises the primacy of a human being. This is the most fundamental message that be sent from Europe and for Europe. And it is the concept of man as a person: a rational being, free, social and endowed with unlimited dignity that we should defend. We realize, and this is corroborated by history, that whenever human dignity is at risk, compromise ceases to be a value in itself. I used the word ‘value’ here since next to primacy of culture over economy and politics, this is one of the dimensions of the Polish experience which is universal. Since “Solidarity” phenomenon was ultimately an ethical phenomenon by nature. The power of the powerless stemmed from the faith in fundamental values, in human dignity; it lent “Solidarity” its effectiveness which led to peaceful dismantling of the bloodiest empire in mankind’s history. Germany looks on the same kind of experience. The resounding social and economic success recorded by Germany, the country ruined in the wake of World War II, was accompanied with the debate on the most fundamental values, on ethical values underpinning German reborn statehood. And this is the kind of debate that Europe needs nowadays. The European unity will be only deep and practically effective in operation if it is built on the community of values. Ladies and Gentlemen, “A united Europe was not achieved, and we had war” - this is what the Founding Fathers of European Communities wrote. That is why they were so persistent and determined in setting up European institutions, striving to expand and deepen the scope of integration. They appreciated that only a united Europe can emerge as a Europe free of wars. This way, for a number of decades to come, the respect of human and civil rights, democratic state governed by the rule of law and respect of minorities treated as foundations of peace, became Europe’s distinctive mark. Likewise, its showpiece was the ability to constructively build compromise for which we should be prepared also nowadays in order to face all the challenges emerging before us. The key challenge for Europe is that the state can combine its concern for development of all citizens with economic effectiveness. Only Europe, enlivened with a spirit of enterprise, supporting small and medium enterprises throughout its community, and seeking to create the right climate for industry, will effectively compete on the global market. We need today to make a creative reference to the concept of a social free market economy, one that will demonstrate how to combine subsidiarity and solidarity, how to combine interests of an individual with the common weal. Polish transformation experience points to the importance of courageous reforms and good regulations but concurrently, it emphasizes that systemic changes should unleash human energy and creative powers. Another task is to improve the Eurozone system so that it becomes more resistant to turbulence. Conclusions drawn from the most recent crisis and ongoing reform in the Eurozone should become an incentive for other states, including Poland, to make the euro common currency for all who pledged to be ready to adopt it when they were entering the European Communities. But it must be remembered that the Eurozone will be effectively attracting others only through enhanced sense of security and sense of greater solidarity among all of its members. It is, therefore, worthwhile to demand reform to be carried out in all of Eurozone members and to make them responsible for it. The problem of security reappears before us in all of its relevance: starting from energy security through protection of citizens against acts of terror, protection of territorial integrity of the countries close to us, and ending with the need to reinforce our own defences; as we are confronted with a threat of relapse to the use of force and of military aggression, close to us, here in Europe. A threat is posed not only to NATO’s eastern flank but indeed to the whole continent. Speaking about these challenges in the year when we celebrated the 10th anniversary of EU enlargement to the East, I ponder our future. It is neighbouring countries: Germany, the biggest country of the old EU and Poland, the biggest country of the new EU that should be an example in overcoming the difficult past but also in building a secure Europe for new generations to come, for the future. Our countries should take on the task of burying the old divisions into the East and the West of the continent and of preventing the emergence of new divisions. As Federal President Mr Joachim Gauck put it: “Only jointly can we build democratic and peaceful Europe of the future. And only jointly can we defend it”. We need Polish-German community of shared responsibility for the future. In order to be able to build such a community effectively we must be also aware of the things we should not do, we must avoid the pitfalls of the so called surface integration where only the facade is built. Today one must have courage to say that in spite of many beautiful dreams and designs, it will not be easy to move forward. An inconsiderate attempt to make further integration steps without strengthening the foundations may prove counterproductive and may serve the weakening of the EU, the disintegration of the European Union, rather than its reinforcement and support. Neither top-down attempts at European homogeneity, against the motto of “united in diversity”, will be effective nor bureaucratic attempts at regulating constantly new domains of economic and social life – for that would hamper the dynamics of growth which emerges from a natural creative spontaneity in those two spheres of life. The subsidiarity principle, the principle of the EU system, is too frequently overlooked in practise. We want a deepened integration. We want it and that is why a vast task in store for the incoming heads of EU institutions is to preserve the Union’s cohesion in spite of inevitable differentiation that occurs in particular integration stages. This responsibility is largely vested in the biggest countries of the EU which recently have now and then been demonstrating their propensity for acting unilaterally, for actions which would not give due consideration to the interest of the EU as a whole. Those decentralist actions may be mutually reinforcing and may often trigger off reactions that will weaken the EU. Ladies and Gentlemen, In the time when we, the people of the free world, need to face up to many fundamental challenges, Polish-German shared responsibility is not limited to the European Union. Poland, Germany, and all others are also united in their shared responsibility for transatlantic bonds and the North Atlantic Alliance which played and continues to play an important stabilizing role in the whole global international order. .This is why, in spite of disputes that may emerge now and then, we should not cease in our efforts to rebuild the transatlantic confidence which is sometimes, as we know it, infringed or questioned. This is a vast task for the governments and civil society institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. That stabilizing role of the Alliance is founded on the solid groundwork, i.e. the Washington Treaty, on the readiness to come to each other’s aid. We pledged that member states “separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”. These commitments are a constitution in our thinking about Europe’s security and Transatlantic bonds. It is, therefore, important that those commitments have been reaffirmed during the recent NATO Summit in Wales. I hope that we will not be wanting consistence in the implementation of the Summit’s provisions and that we will not allow ourselves be inhibited by agreements with third parties who do not abide by their own commitments. Good news is that the strategic reinforcement of NATO’s eastern flank will come as a response to the war in Ukraine – through permanent deployment of allied troops and projected technological infrastructure in the border countries. And also through the increasing of preparedness of response forces and promoting the role of command of the corps in Szczecin whose core are Polish, German and Danish officers. We remember that thanks to the cooperation with the United States and thanks to the NATO umbrella, it was possible for Western Europe and also Germany themselves, to achieve their post-war success. NATO created the essential security space for development and continues to do so to-date. Now, when we are again facing up to security challenges NATO must remain an effective military alliance in order to make it possible for us to take decisions, without fear, without giving in to any threats. Deterrence is not an antonym of cooperation and dialogue, but is its necessary complementation. There are forces in the world which do not care about commitments once made if they detect military weakness or simply indecision among their partners. The bonds with North America should not be limited to security issues alone. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a way to implement the plan conceived at the very outset of the Alliance, in the conviction that common economic area will lend vitality to transatlantic community. We realize fully well that the time needed for implementation of that idea speaks volumes about how difficult it is for all the parties concerned and what risk elements it contains. But the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is not a trade agreement but a missing link in the transatlantic community of security, a project of a civilization’s dimension. If we want to keep up the vitality of that community, let us invest in the successful accomplishment of the idea. While the centre of gravity of the world moves in the direction of Asia, let us lend the Western world more stability. Maintaining a political, military, economic and social transatlantic bond is, in my view, a good investment into prosperous future. Our shared future! The strengthening of the European Union unity and solidarity and of the community of the broadly understood West comes as a difficult challenge in the times of great uncertainty. The challenge is all the bigger that while changing Europe and consolidating the transatlantic community we must in parallel find common answers to geostrategic challenges in our environment. Polish-German community of shared responsibility that I propose must also include a shared response to the threats arising in neighbouring countries. The days of peace dividend after the Cold War are over. We must face up to the challenges which more and more frequently involve a threat of military aggression. As we remember, among others in response to the warfare in Western Balkans the idea of common security and defence policy was arduously taking shape. We hoped that after the Bosnian experience, after the experience of besieged Sarajevo and after Srebrenica massacre we will be able to come up with an answer when the next crisis comes. Each one must give one’s own answer to the question: what we see in our immediate neighbourhood: in Ukraine, in Syria, Libya or Iraq – is it countered adequately? Those developments – do they not undermine our faith in our capacities and effectiveness of actions taken by the institutions we so laboriously created? If we believe in the universality of our values, we must find determination to stand for them! There are various movements and various phenomena that put freedom at risk: they are different in Iraq, different in Syria, in Ukraine or in Russia. What they all have in common, as a common denominator, is contempt of human rights, of rule of law, and of civil liberties. The contempt of people who want freedom and solidarity, who want tube a democratic nation. It is not a coincidence that Islamist fundamentalists target particularly ballot stations where people may determine their future. It is not a coincidence that the Ukrainians poured onto the Maidan in Kiev stating that they are the sovereigns in their own state and by doing so they ignited fury of the neighbouring power which opted for an unprecedented war, for an aggression in Europe. Before our very eyes, a nationalist ideology is being reborn, which under the guise of humanitarian words about saving national minorities, violates human rights and rights of nations. We know it well, precisely from the lesson learnt in the 1930’s. Today in this context, the words of President Richard von Weizsäcker sound particularly poignant: “Who turns a blind eye to the past, shall be blind in the future”. Threats to freedom must be spoken of with all emphasis in a clear and understandable language. It must be done since any lenience vis a vis aggression makes Europe doomed to a potential failure. This is yet another conclusion to be drawn from the difficult Polish-German lesson of history which we should keep repeating to Europe and the world. I believe that here standing in this very place which was witness of so many dramatic events, standing here these days, so imbued with symbols, with important European anniversaries, I may say to my German neighbours and friends: only a courageous politics built on values, centred on human dignity, deserves the name of “realpolitik”. Let us build together in Europe a wise, long-term and effective policy, the one that will stand for dignity of every man, every individual and all people! The crisis in Ukraine has long time shed the dimension of a regional bilateral conflict and emerged as challenge to the whole continent, to the whole Western world. By launching an attack on Ukraine Russia has undermined the groundwork of a democratic community, its rights and its values, including the most fundamental principle ruling in the civilized world: the principle of respect of state sovereignty. Ukraine has done nothing to justify that aggression. Moreover, we can see conscious actions to bring down or at least to block the European unity, to set Europeans at variance with each other, to weaken transatlantic bonds. If we continue to believe in the global role played by the European Union we must prove its capacity to act in its immediate neighbourhood. Even a decade ago, we still believed that the march of freedom in which Poles and Germans went together 25 years ago, would be unstoppable, that new nations would join in, attracted by the prospect of democratic welfare and European lifestyle. We do not abandon that hope. We still believe that our Freedom Motorway will be running further and further, reaching out far to the east of Europe. But we see that the road to achieve it is going to be more difficult, less comfortable. Nobody would be happier than the Poles to welcome Russia as at rusted and predictable partner. As much as Germany, as much as the entire European Union, we have invested a lot in the rapprochement with Russia. The Polish-Russian Group for Difficult Issues has great attainments to its credit, we continue to pin our hopes on the Centres of Dialogue and Reconciliation where Polish-Russian talks and meetings continue. Worth recalling and remembering is the fact that a few years ago, it was Western Europe that perseveringly opposed the institution of broadened small scale border traffic among Poland and Russia. Today we bless those decisions since this is one of the areas where we can co-influence the mindsets and knowledge of the world among our Russian neighbours. We would also like to see Russia as a partner of the broadly understood West. This is why the contemporary policy of Russia comes as a deep disappointment to us, as much as a multifaceted challenge. We deplore the fact the decision makers in the Kremlin have opted for an anti-Occidentalism as defining their identity and their geopolitical direction, they opted for domination and building their importance not through the country’s modernization and cooperation with the West but through the building of an updated version of the old sphere of influence, using military power against its neighbours. The war with Georgia six years ago and the current war in Ukraine are a deplorable manifestation of that trend. In my view, the developments in Eastern Ukraine have been brought about by the anxiety felt by the rulers in the Kremlin who feared the success of democratic modernization, something that we all wish for Ukraine and for Russia. Many people among our Russian friends are likeminded; they fear that Kremlin’s contemporary policy threatens civil rights and liberties. We also need to invest in Russian speaking media broadcasting in Europe and beyond, in order to spread the area of free information and to combat deception. This way, we can also obtain advantages seen as crucial by our Russian friends, crucial for democracy and for friends of freedom. Determination and victims sustained by Ukraine and its society who bore European standards last winter in the Maidan; the suffering they feel in the current war, will not let us stay indifferent in the face of the drama afflicting that European state. This requires from the EU and the whole West a comprehensive assistance to be offered to the Ukrainians. They are fighting now not so much for their right to deliver on one or another trade agreement but for their fundamental right to independence, their right to sovereign choice. Even if faced with the threat of war, the Ukrainians are not departing from the road to democratic capacity-building. Let us give them support as they strive to strengthen the rudiments of their statehood. Let us support the Eastern Partnership. We have not failed, we have not led Europe astray, we made at least some countries of that region wish to live by the same principles that we preach. The example of freedom is contagious. If we reverse on the road we have taken: of support for modernization among our eastern European partners, we may, in my view, consign us to chaos and to uncontrolled social explosions in the direct neighbourhood of the EU and NATO. This is why assistance to Ukraine and other Eastern Partnership countries is essential in each dimension possible: starting from humanitarian aid and assistance in rebuilding war destruction and ending with the sharing of experience in the field of local government’s reform, SME’s, fighting corruption and reform of defence and of security. Ladies and Gentleman, As I stand here, in the place where the heart of German democracy beats, I cannot hide a profound sense of personal emotion that overcomes me; this is an emotion felt by the son of the resurgent of the Home Army and an officer of the Polish Army who marching towards Berlin went as far as Lausitz. Standing here in front of the highest representation of democratic Germany, I cannot forget my paternal uncle Bronisław, recalled by Mr President, after whom I was named, inheriting the whole tradition. The whole good and painful experience that goes with it. Indeed, he died under German orders in the occupied Vilnius sentenced for his struggle for free Poland. He was just 16. But I cannot and will not help being overcome by emotion also for another reason, important to me: that I was born soon after the war in the Lower Silesia, in the vicinity of Wrocław, in a Polish family expelled from the former eastern territories of the Republic of Poland. But I was born in a house which had previously been left by a German family. I was playing with toys of some German children. That particular family must have had an experience similar to that of my own family. They experienced the history whose tragic chapter opened 75 years ago, on September 1, 1939. So I can well understand the grief caused by the wrongdoing and the loss of one’s homeland. But for me that shared sense of grief is yet another argument to act for Polish-German reconciliation and cooperation. It is yet another corroboration of the importance of the miraculous Polish-German reconciliation that unfolds. Thank to reconciliation and cooperation, thanks to joint participation in the processes of European integration and unification, we may nowadays develop a Polish-German community of shared responsibility. And this is what we are doing, not forgetting about the past but thanks to the shared effort to remember the past in a wise and responsible manner. I admire the capability of new Germany to understand history, to courageously stand up to its drama, originating in the policy of the Nazi Germany. I would like us to jointly draw conclusions from that past. Our present-day challenges and experiences make it incumbent on us to demonstrate something that was lacking 75 years ago. Democratic community needs a vision, a strategy and determination in the defence of the international order, sovereignty of states and civil liberties. That mission must be centred on Europe and its reform, on the neighbourhood of the European Union, the stability of the latter in the face of creeping warfare, must be centred on transatlantic bonds, and the solicitude to maintain good relations between Europe and America. We need now Polish-German community of shared responsibility more than ever before, a community for Europe, open to all European countries, to the whole of our continent. It is my ardent desire as much as, I am sure, of all of you present in this House, to be able to commemorate next anniversaries of the outbreak of World War II by ascertaining more than the Founding Fathers of the EU have. We would all like to be able to say: “A united Europe was not achieved, and we had war. But thanks to Europe and its institutions there is no more war on the whole free continent.” It depends on us, on our faith and action whether the Freedom Motorway will in the future run much much further, stretching beyond Warsaw and Berlin. But let us rejoice and let us take pride in the fact that freedom is as a foundation for Polish-German relations, in all areas we are jointly responsible for. Thank you very much!
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 02:52:27 +0000
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