Fighting to win an unprecedented third term in office, Poland's nationalist government has seized on a target close to home: Germany, its NATO ally and biggest trading partner.
I´m afraid it worked in the past considering they have now been in the government for more than one legislative period. Understandably since WW2 Germany is not quite popular in Poland. It´s a cheap populist tactic that sadly seems to work pretty well.
Yeah! It´s so much fun! Source: I spent half of my childhood and teenage years in Austria and was bullied and mobbed constantly, simply for being of german heritage and they did not care at all that I was born in 1981, several decades after the Nazi regime had ended. With Poland having been invaded by the Wehrmacht and not “angeschlossen” like Austria, it´s only natural that the rejection is even deeper. We must also consider that, while we were born long after the Nazi regime ended, there are still elderly people in Poland, who witnessed the war horrors and the atrocities of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Holocaust. All these horrible things were done mostly by Germans. That is why I, while not feeling responsible on one hand, can also not judge people for still being angry about those horrible crimes. The thing I really condemn though is when populist politicians instrumentalize these emotions for their own advantage.
I´m afraid it worked in the past considering they have now been in the government for more than one legislative period. Understandably since WW2 Germany is not quite popular in Poland. It´s a cheap populist tactic that sadly seems to work pretty well.
There’s nothing like being made responsible for something my great grandparents were at least somewhat responsible for…
Yeah! It´s so much fun! Source: I spent half of my childhood and teenage years in Austria and was bullied and mobbed constantly, simply for being of german heritage and they did not care at all that I was born in 1981, several decades after the Nazi regime had ended. With Poland having been invaded by the Wehrmacht and not “angeschlossen” like Austria, it´s only natural that the rejection is even deeper. We must also consider that, while we were born long after the Nazi regime ended, there are still elderly people in Poland, who witnessed the war horrors and the atrocities of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Holocaust. All these horrible things were done mostly by Germans. That is why I, while not feeling responsible on one hand, can also not judge people for still being angry about those horrible crimes. The thing I really condemn though is when populist politicians instrumentalize these emotions for their own advantage.