German-Polish relations: Endless hatred of Bundeswehr soldiers

“Zamach, Zamach!” – Polish right-wing radicals have been chanting “coup d’état” for a week now in front of the Constitutional Court in Warsaw. Poland's Internet is full of dramatic videos featuring alleged enemies of the state and traitors.

Recently, on many social media channels of right-wing politicians, threatening-looking Bundeswehr trucks have been racing along Poland's highways towards Warsaw. Bundeswehr soldiers in green camouflage clothing are “caught” in front of the Polish parliament and staged to the harsh sounds of the “Rammstein” group. Below the video it says in bold letters and in English: “Brussels sends German troops to Poland,” as if the “coup against Poland” was the work of the center-left government of Donald Tusk, hated by the right, the European Union and the Germans.

Anti-German hate videos have increased so much in recent days that the German embassy in Warsaw was forced to react. It says somewhat awkwardly: “The German Embassy is currently inviting people to celebrations on the occasion of the 71st anniversary of the founding of the Bundeswehr, on the sidelines of which an exhibition on the 70th anniversary of the Air Force is being shown, and which is being celebrated at all German missions abroad.” At the end of the long press release, X says: "Any disinformation that suggests Germany's involvement in Poland's domestic political affairs or that assumes instrumentalization between allies is strictly rejected."

The problem: just 20,000 X users clicked on the embassy's denial. The hate videos, on the other hand, are seen by millions of Poles and taken at face value. The right-wing nationalist President Karol Nawrocki also likes to repeat that the danger for Poland comes not so much from the east but from the west and that Polish society is ready to defend Poland's western border.

Politicians from the right-wing nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS), which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, miss no opportunity to brand the liberal-conservative Prime Minister Donald Tusk as a German agent. But PiS politicians also like to show ancient pictures of Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk on the Sopot pier, and then again pictures of Tusk in an alleged SS or Wehrmacht uniform.

PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński has been claiming for years that the Germans are doing everything they can to get Poland “under their boot” and that Brussels and Berlin are jointly trying to deprive Poland of its state independence. Years ago, Kaczyński loudly demanded reparations from Germany that he allegedly never received, which contributed to his victory in parliamentary elections.

Poland not only received the highest reparations after the Soviet Union, but also - after Israel - the highest financial aid for Nazi victims. But one was right after the Second World War and the other was after the political change in Poland in 1989 and the reunification of Germany in 1990. Hardly anyone remembers it today.

In the right-wing hate videos, Internet users are always told the same message: the center-left government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk, its neighbor Germany and the EU are enemies. The Tusk coalition, which collaborates with Germany and the EU, must go, Berlin's political importance in the world must be morally undermined and the EU's role must be reduced to that of a donor.

Kaczyński recently called for Poland's EU exit negotiations to begin, as Brussels too often interferes in Poland's sovereignty. In one of the soldier hate videos by the right-wing parliamentarian Konrad Berkowicz it sounds like this: "Democracy à la European Union, the German army in Poland. Ursula von der Leyen sends the German army to Poland. Donald Tusk gives his consent. The media is silent. The world has to see that."

The PiS politician Dariusz Matecki writes on X: “The German soldiers explain that they are on the way to an exhibition in the German embassy.” Then he asks the typical PiS election campaign question that has been repeated thousands of times: “When will Berlin finally pay the reparations to which Poland is entitled for the immeasurable damage caused by the Second World War?”