German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologized to the victims of the German aggression in 1939 during a ceremony in Wielun, a small Polish town where the first bombs of the Second World War fell. "I bow to the victims of the Wielun attack, I bow to the Polish victims of German tyranny, and I beg your pardon," said in German and Polish Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the presence of his Polish counterpart.
Poland was hit hard by the horrors of the Second World War, losing six million citizens, including three million Jews. "It is the Germans who have committed a crime against humanity in Poland, whoever claims that it is over, that the reign of terror of the National Socialists on Europe is a marginal event in German history "," said Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
"I am convinced that this ceremony will go down in the history of Polish-German friendship"
The head of state seemed to refer to the German far right, whose co-president Alexander Gauland had estimated that the years of the Third Reich were a "bird droppings" in a German millennium glorious. "We will not forget, we want to remember and we will remember," insisted Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
For his part, Polish President Andrzej Duda denounced "an act of barbarism" and "a war crime" that opened the Second World War "in Wielun on September 1, 1939. He thanked Frank-Walter Steinmeier for his presence in Wielun: "I am convinced that this ceremony will go down in the history of Polish-German friendship," he said.