Saturday, March 15, 2014
Senate (Omni Shoreham)
The German-Polish reconciliation after the IIWW can be regarded as a kind of “lesson from the past”: it was and still remains a process of mutual learning from and about the war-time experiences of both nations; it has always meant dealing with stereotypes related to the violent past. In this paper I focus on important players in the process of reconciliation: German and Polish Catholic bishops. They contributed to the German-Polish reconciliation with an awareness of its relevance for European unity (e.g. they regarded the Polish-German Oder-Neisse-border not only as a question of bilateral reconciliation but also one relevant to creating a durable peace in Europe). However, their actions were influenced by the social and political contexts of their countries: they had to deal, for example, with tensions between national and religious loyalties.
This paper highlights important events in the reconciliation process in the period from 1945 to the present, such as the letter of the Polish episcopate to the German episcopate in 1965 or the joint declarations of the German and Polish episcopates in 1995 and 2005. On the basis of these examples, the paper seeks answers to the following questions:
What references do the bishops make to the WWII, German-Polish reconciliation and the relevance of these topics for European integration?
How were these references influenced by the different war-time experiences or political systems in the respective countries? Did they change after 1989?
What value do German and Polish bishops today attach to the reconciliation between their countries?
