On June 17, 1991, Polish Prime Minister Jan Krzysztof Bielecki and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl met in Bonn – then the seat of the German government – to sign the Treaty on Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland.
This agreement marked a new beginning in Polish–German relations after decades of hostility and mistrust.
Thirty-five years later, on June 17, 2026, the two states – now close partners in the EU and NATO – will mark signing anniversary At a major event of the German Polish Forum in Berlin.
‘The foundation of a new order in Europe’
The Polish Senate, the upper house of the Polish parliament, praised the treaty last Wednesday, calling it “the foundation of the new order in Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain” and a “breakthrough” in Polish-German relations.
On the same day, Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, debated the topic “Strong Friendship in Peace and Freedom – 35 years after the resumption of German-Polish relations”.
“Today, Germans are grateful for the fact that Poland extended a hand to us in the form of the Good Neighbor Pact at the time and accepted the hand we gave them,” said conservative German lawmaker Knut Abraham, who holds the post of coordinator of German-Polish intersocietal and cross-border cooperation since May 2025.
hostility and distrust
After World War II, Polish–German relations were characterized by hostility and mistrust.
At the heart of the conflict was a dispute over the recognition of the Oder-Neisse Line – the post-war border between Germany and Poland – which was cleverly promoted by the propaganda of the communist regime in Poland.
In the 1970s, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s “Ostpolitik”, which sought rapprochement between Germany and communist Eastern Europe, brought normalization in relations between the two countries, but no more.
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Only the fall of communism and the restoration of democracy in Poland in 1989 and the reunification of Germany the following year made a new beginning possible.
The confirmation of the Oder–Neisse line as the German–Polish border on November 14, 1990, and the friendship treaty signed seven months later laid the foundation for the partnership.
“With the treaty, we drew a line under the past and laid the foundation for cooperation in the future,” Marek Krzakala, a lawmaker from Poland’s ruling Civic Coalition, told DW.
Krzakala, who is also chairman of the cross-party Polish-German parliamentary group in Poland, said that without Germany’s support, Poland’s accession to the European Union (2004) and NATO (1999) would have been much more difficult.
shared interests
When he was appointed Poland’s first non-Communist Foreign Minister in 1989, Krzysztof Skubiszewski declared that building the interest of the German-Polish community was his political objective.
And so began the painstaking work of building what Nat Abraham calls “a network of relationships” across politics, business, culture, and border areas.
The list of achievements is long. Today, there are hundreds of Polish-German partnerships between cities, schools, sports clubs and fire departments. More than 3 million German and Polish youth have participated in exchange programs.
Last year trade between the two countries exceeded €180 billion ($209 billion) for the first time, making Poland Germany’s fifth-largest trading partner after France.
New opportunities for growth and flourishing have opened up for both Poland’s German minority and the Polish diaspora in Germany.
War reparations highlight the burden of the past
However, over time, the initial Polish enthusiasm towards its neighbor on the opposite bank of the Oder River gave way to increasing suspicion and criticism of Germany.
Above all, the countries’ troubled past continued to rear its head.
In the late 1990s, Erica Steinbach, then president of the German Federation of Expellees, caused consternation in Poland with her plan to establish a documentation center, known as the Center Against Expulsions, which focused on the suffering of Germans. In Poland this focus was seen as a relativization of what Germany did in World War II.
Polish right-wing conservatives, who had always been skeptical of Germany, realized that they could score political points in Poland with anti-German rhetoric.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party ruled the country from 2005 to 2007 and again from 2015 to 2023, accused Berlin of establishing a “Fourth Reich” and bringing Poland “under the German boot” with the help of the EU.
In 2022, the PiS government placed the topic of war reparations on Poland’s official political agenda.
Poland’s losses as a result of the German occupation between 1939 and 1945 are estimated at €1.4 trillion ($1.6 trillion).
“Our predecessors tried to convince people that Germany was our enemy,” lawmaker Krzakala said. “But the overwhelming majority of Polish people do not agree with this opinion.”
“Good relations with Germany are the raison d’être of our state, especially during Russia’s war in Ukraine,” he said.
War victims still waiting for ‘humanitarian initiative’
Yet, the desire for reparations is not limited to right-wing conservatives and far-right populists.
Because Berlin completely rejected all demands for war reparations, discussions have been ongoing for years about finding a “practical solution” for the estimated 50,000 surviving war victims.
The German proposal to provide approximately €200 million for this group of victims in 2024 was rejected by the Polish side as insufficient. A new proposal from Berlin may not be considered until the 2027 budget.
Poland’s moderate conservative Prime Minister Donald Tusk, facing domestic pressure over the issue, recently said he would give the German side “a little more time.”
Military partnership at the forefront
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, security came to the center of bilateral relations between Germany and Poland.
Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr, deployed Patriot air defense systems and Eurofighter jets to help protect airspace along NATO’s eastern border in Poland.
A German-Polish defense agreement, set to be signed on June 17, is set to rapidly advance military cooperation between the two countries. It was no coincidence that Wednesday was chosen for the signing of this agreement.
When the Treaty on Good Neighborhood, Friendship and Cooperation was signed in 1991, Polish diplomat Janusz Reiter was Poland’s ambassador to Germany. A year earlier, he reminded politicians in Berlin that Poland’s eastern border was also Germany’s first line of defense and called on Berlin to actively support Poland in securing this border.
Reiter considers the integration of Ukraine into Western structures as the biggest challenge for Poland and Germany. With their military and economic potential, cooperation between these three countries would be a “historic experience”.
“The window is open,” Reiter said, “but I fear this historic opportunity will soon pass.”
This article was originally written in German.