1.1 Introduction

The history of German “Polish relations after World War II was marked by the post-Yalta westward shift of the border between (and the populations of) Germany and Poland and by the Cold War division of Germany, its Western part becoming a member of NATO and later of the European Economic Community, and its Eastern part, together with Poland, becoming a member of the Warsaw Pact and the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon).

As a consequence of the decision taken in Yalta and Potsdam, Poland lost nearly 50 per cent of its prewar territory to the Soviet Union (182 000 square kilometres) but gained 103 000 square kilometres of Germany. Thus Poland s net loss of territory amounted to 20 per cent. Germany lost 25 per cent of its prewar territory (114 000 square kilometres), of which 22 per cent was handed over to Poland and 3 per cent to the Soviet Union. Both countries had lost six million of their citizens in the war, amounting to 22 per cent of the Polish population (including three million Polish Jews murdered in Holocaust) and 10 per cent of the German population (Dimitr ³w, 2001, p. 12). As well as those who had already fled, 3.5 million Germans were deported immediately after the war from Poland to Germany and 1.5 million Poles from the Soviet Union to Poland (Ociepka, 2001).

The postwar territorial and human losses and trauma, the German “Polish border changes, and the painful and tragic deportations meant that German “Polish political and human relations were governed by mistrust for many years . The imposition of the new German “Polish border formed the cornerstone of Poland s foreign policy after 1945. Non-acceptance of the territorial change was similarly important to West Germany until the 1970s, and it strove to repatriate those Germans who had been stranded in the new Polish territory after World War II, or to force Poland to recognize them as a minority group . These circumstances have continued to influence the course of German “Polish political, economic, cultural and human relations, and although progress towards reconciliation has been made, goodwill, mutual understanding and a readiness to continue the dialogue are still required.