Former Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło put it right: The increasingly audacious attempts by Germans to step into the shoes of the victims of World War II are “cheek and mockery of the victims of German crimes.” For when the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz claims that “78 years ago Germany and the world were liberated from the tyranny of national socialism,” he is simply lying.
At the end of World War II, the Germans fought to the bitter end to defend national socialism and fully implement Hitler’s sinister program. Resistance to the Nazi government was of a symbolic nature at best, and those who attempted to assassinate the creator of the Third Reich did so because of failures on the front, not because they opposed the regime. Throughout Europe, it was not the Nazis who killed people of other nationalities, but ordinary Germans — workers, peasants, officials, intellectuals, and the nobility.
They killed with passion and savagery that cannot be explained by the brutal nature of the regime or by the circumstances. They killed because they too felt they were part of the “master race” and dreamed of Lebensraum from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains, and perhaps even further. The cancer of cruelty had seized the Germans in a way unknown in history. It had taken root because of Germany’s deep-seated history and deeply ingrained contempt for those considered to be weaker, especially Slavs and Jews.
In Hitler’s plan, the Poles were to be reduced to the role of slaves, resettled east of the Urals, and deprived of any leadership strata. They were to disappear as a nation. These were not empty words; he attempted to fully realize his intentions, as set out in “Mein Kampf.” There is no reason to believe that he would have behaved differently toward Poles.
It was Germans and not the Nazis who murdered 6 million European Jews, including 3 million Polish citizens. It was their doing. The fact that not all Poles passed such an extremely difficult exam under brutal occupation conditions does not change anything. If it wasn’t for the German aggression, and the later extermination of Polish elites, there would be no collaborators. Their shameful behavior burdens the German, not Polish, conscience.
Poland speaks out loud about all of this, and it must remain that way. Poland, in the face of the confusion of the Anglo-Saxons, the cunning of the Germans, and the traditional deceitfulness of the Russians, is today the guardian of the truth about World War II.
Poles speak the truth with courage and thank God with commitment and passion, and so it must remain. This is our mission. Our holy mission.
