German leader offers apology for war brutality

WARSAW, Poland – In a gesture of humility, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder bowed on the steps of a memorial to the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation, acknowledging Sunday the “immeasurable suffering” inflicted by Germans when they crushed the revolt 60 years ago.

Schroeder became the first German chancellor to attend an anniversary of the two-month uprising, which ended with 200,000 Warsaw residents dead and most of the city systematically destroyed by the Nazis.

“I consider it a great personal honor to have been invited and a big-hearted gesture to my country, which brought such immeasurable suffering to the Poles with the war it started,” Schroeder said after talks with Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka.

Schroeder bowed on the steps of the Warsaw Uprising Memorial as a lone trumpeter played taps. Just before, sirens sounded across Warsaw at 5 p.m., the hour the uprising began on Aug. 1, 1944.

Remembrance of the 63-day battle against Nazi troops by Poland’s poorly armed and out-manned Home Army resistance movement and civilians – even children – has provoked an outpouring of patriotism in Poland.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed “admiration for the spirit that kept freedom alive during those terrible days of World War II,” drawing an allusion to Poland’s military support in Iraq.

“The important thing is that Poland and the United States are united today,” he told a news conference. “Poland will never be alone again.”

Nearly five years after the Nazis invaded Poland, starting World War II, the Home Army rose up, with Soviet troops just outside Warsaw and Allied forces advancing eastward after the D-Day landings. After the Poles were crushed, the Germans imprisoned fighters and expelled civilians, many of them to concentration camps.

In contrast to the communist era, Poles now could also bitterly recall in public that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s Red Army stood by on the east bank of the Vistula River. Stalin also prevented British and U.S. planes to airlift supplies to the insurgents by refusing them permission to refuel at Red Army airfields.

“There were difficulties in reaching Poland, but attempts were made,” Powell said Sunday.

Stalin maintained the uprising was an irresponsible act that would set back the war effort. But it is widely believed his real motive was fear that the rebels would become Poland’s future leadership and resist his scheme of bringing eastern Europe under communist domination.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to his Polish counterpart, Aleksander Kwasniewski, that praised the Polish resistance fighters for contributing to the Allied victory.

In a second message addressed to all Poles, he suggested that both countries put past animosity behind them and work for relations “free of stereotypes.”

Polish-born Pope John Paul II paid tribute to “the heroes of the capital” in remarks to Polish pilgrims at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy.

Relations with Germany have vastly improved since the collapse of communism in 1989 ended Europe’s division. On May 1, Poland joined its western neighbor in the European Union.

But a dispute has flared over Germans who lost ancestral property in Poland when their forebears were expelled or fled from Poland after the Nazi defeat in World War II in May 1945.

On Sunday, Schroeder gave his strongest assurance yet that his government will oppose individual claims by Germans for restitution.

“The German government will oppose such claims and make that plain before any international court,” he said.

The Polish government says the issue is closed. But Germany’s main expellee lobby group has pointed out that no one can forbid individuals from trying to regain property through the courts.