Kniefall von Warschau
Kniefall von Warschau, also referred to as Warschauer Kniefall, refers to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's gesture of kneeling before a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during a state visit to Poland in 1970. Perceived as a sign of profound humility, images of Brandt's action received worldwide attention. More broadly, the gesture came to symbolise Ostpolitik, Brandt's ultimately successful policy of diplomatically reconciling West Germany with its eastern neighbours following the Holocaust and the Second World War.
Event
The event took place on December 7, 1970, in Warsaw, Poland, during a visit to a monument to the German occupation-era Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After laying a wreath, Brandt unexpectedly, and spontaneously, knelt. He remained silently in that position for a short time, surrounded by a large group of dignitaries and press photographers. Brandt had actively resisted the early Nazi regime, and had spent most of the time of Hitler's reign in exile. The occasion of Brandt's visit to Poland at the time was the signing of the Treaty of [Warsaw (1970)|Treaty of Warsaw] between West Germany and Poland, guaranteeing German acceptance of the new borders of Poland. The treaty was one of the Brandt-initiated policy steps to ease tensions between West and East during the Cold War.Reactions
In Germany
On the same day, Brandt signed the Treaty of Warsaw, which acknowledged the Oder–Neisse line as the final German border with Poland. Both actions attracted controversy within Germany, as did Ostpolitik in general, which was supported by only a narrow majority of the people and had opposition within Brandt's own Social [Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic Party]. Its voters had included a significant proportion of expellees from the formerly-German territories in Poland, most of whom left to support the conservative parties.According to a Der Spiegel survey of the time, 48% of all West Germans thought the Kniefall was excessive, 41% said it was appropriate and 11% had no opinion. Brandt's victory in the next elections, in 1972 [West German federal election|late 1972], was also due to the growing view among voters that Brandt's Ostpolitik, symbolized by the Kniefall, and his reformist domestic policies were helping to boost Germany's international reputation and so should be supported. His party won its best federal election result ever.
Internationally
While at the time, positive reactions may have been limited, his show of humility was a small but vital step in bridging the gaps World War II had left between Germany and Eastern Europe. In historical terms, Brandt gained much renown for this act. He was named Time Person of the Year in 1970, with the magazine highlighting the Kniefall as one of the main reasons for his recognition, and it is thought to be one of the reasons he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.A monument to Willy Brandt was unveiled on 6 December 2000, in Willy Brandt Square in Warsaw on the eve of the 30th anniversary of his famous gesture.
Brandt's memories
Brandt was repeatedly interviewed about the genuflection and about his motives. He later noted that:Egon Bahr, an eyewitness and Brandt's friend and political ally of many years, recalled in a 2010 interview: "The only thing he said was that at that moment facing the ribbon, he thought: Just laying the wreath is not enough."
Later reception
Reviewing the Kniefall one tends to agree that it played an important part in easing the tension between the Eastern and Western Blocs. The Treaty of Warsaw 1970 was signed on the very same day and it included the inviolability of the Oder-Neisse-line. Józef Cyrankiewicz the Polish prime minister and survivor of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp signed. To expand on Brandt's memories, here are some later receptions:There is a lot of speculation whether Brandt did this spontaneously. Willy Brandt wrote about that in his memoirs Erinnerungen :
Egon Bahr said in his reminiscence Zu meiner Zeit 1996:
Walter Scheel wrote a letter to the news magazine Solinger Tageblatt in 2010 stating:
On December 7, 2010, the federal president Christian Wulff and the Polish president Bronislaw Komorowski, on its fortieth anniversary, held speeches about the meaning of this Kniefall for the Polish-German reconciliation. They were invited by Friedrich-Ebert Foundation in Warsaw and laid wreaths at the monument for the Warsaw Uprisings and the monument for the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto.
The writer Navid Kermani said in a celebration for 65 Jahre Grundgesetz in the German Bundestag on May 23, 2014:
The historian Michael Wolffsohn claimed on the fiftieth anniversary in 2020 on the German TV Channel ARD-alpha that it was "a wonderful symbol, but at that time a completely wrong symbol for the addressees". He argues that Brandt intended to apologize to the whole population of Poland, but chose a location mismatching his intent by confusing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with the Warsaw Uprising. While that mistake limited the immediate effect of the symbolic act in Poland at the time, Wolffsohn argues that nonetheless, it has since become a symbol of a new style and role of German foreign policy.