PLATE 6.5

The most dramatic moment of Brandt’s en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Brandt career happened during his visit to Poland’s capital. Warsaw, in 1970 rarehistoricalphotos.com/warschauer-kniefall-1970 Poland had been the country that had had the highest percentage of its population killed during World War Two. It had been the site of the biggest Nazi extermination camps. Poles had good reason to loathe Germans as unrepentant Nazis. On his visit to Warsaw on December, 7, 1970, Brandt visited the Warsaw Ghetto, the site of an unsuccessful Jewish revolt against Nazi occupation in April and May 1943. In front of the Polish crowds, Brandt spontaneously fell down on his knees, acknowledged the millions of victims of the Nazis, and asked for forgiveness for Hitler’s dictatorship and World War Two. Even Poles who continued to distrust Germans recognized Brandt’s behavior as unplanned, sincerely and deeply menat. In today’s world of carefully scripted, unemotional diplomatic statements, Brandt’s kneeling at the Warsaw Ghatto stands out as a unique heartfelt apology by the leader of one country to the people of another country who had suffered greatly. By contrast, think of many other leaders who did not kneel and apologize: American presidents to Vietnamese, Japanese prime ministers to Koreans and Chinese, Stalin to Poles and Ukrainians, de Gaulle to Algerians, and others. ~ Page 238