Leaders from 20 countries laid candles during a ceremony near Gdansk.
Earlier, Polish President Lech Kaczynski criticised the former Soviet Union over responsibility for the war.
His words added to an ongoing row with Moscow, although Russian PM Vladimir Putin said he hoped the two countries could settle their differences.
Mr Kaczynski said Poland had received a "stab in the back" from the former Soviet Union when it invaded and occupied the east of the country as the German army was advancing westwards.
He again criticised the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the early years of the conflict, saying it was about dividing Europe.
Mr Kaczynski recalled the Katyn massacre in which 20,000 Polish officers were killed by Soviet forces, saying it was an act of chauvinism and in revenge for Polish independence.
But he also praised the Soviet Union's sacrifice against Nazi Germany.
Speaking at the ceremony on Westerplatte peninsula, Mr Putin highlighted that nearly half of the estimated 50 million people who died during the war were from the Soviet Union.
The Russian prime minister said all pacts that European states agreed with Nazi Germany were "morally unacceptable", including the 1939 Soviet accord.
He added that Russia accepted its mistakes of the past.
Occupation
Differing historical interpretations of events at the start of the war though have caused a strain in relations between Poland and Russia.
Turning his attention to that controversy, Mr Putin said: "We seriously hope that Russian and Polish relationships will rid themselves of the layers of the past."
Earlier, a dawn ceremony had marked the time when a German battleship fired the first shots on a Polish fort in 1939.
The day began with Mr Kaczynski and his Prime Minister Donald Tusk joining war veterans beside a monument to the heroes of Westerplatte at 0445 (0245 GMT).
The ceremony marked the exact time on 1 September 1939 when the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire at point-blank range on the fort.
At the same time, the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland from east, west and south. The attacks triggered Britain and France's declaration of war against Germany two days later.
Just two weeks later, in mid-September 1939, the Soviet armies occupied eastern Poland.
Speaking at the dawn ceremony, Mr Kaczynski said: "On 17 September... Poland received a stab in the back... This blow came from Bolshevik Russia."
He added: "Glory to the heroes of Westerplatte, glory to all of the soldiers who fought in World War II against German Nazism, and against Bolshevik totalitarianism."
In his address, Mr Tusk said the lessons of history should not be forgotten.
"We remember because we know well that he who forgets, or he who falsifies history, and has power or will assume power will bring unhappiness again like 70 years ago," he said.
At the time of the attack by the Schleswig-Holstein - which was moored in the Polish harbour on a friendship visit - Gdansk was known as the free city of Danzig.
The 182 Polish troops defending the Polish fort were expected to resist for about 12 hours. Despite coming under fire from the air, sea and land, they held out against a force of more than 3,000 Germans for seven days.
According to a survey published on Monday, Westerplatte is the most important symbol of Polish resistance in the whole of the war.
Two weeks after the German invasion, the Red Army invaded and annexed eastern Poland under terms agreed in the secret protocol of a Nazi-Soviet pact.
In early 1940, the Soviet secret services murdered more than 20,000 Polish officers in the forests around Katyn. For 50 years Moscow blamed the Nazis and only admitted responsibility for the crime in 1990.
Russian courts have ruled that Katyn cannot be considered a war crime and Moscow is still refusing to declassify documents about the massacre.
The temperature was raised further this week with accusations broadcast on Russian state TV which implied the USSR was justified in its invasion of Poland because Warsaw had been conspiring with Hitler against Moscow.
Speech of Angela Merkel at Wetserplatte, 1.09.09
The German attack on Poland seventy years ago today marked the beginning of the most tragic chapter in European history. The war Germany unleashed brought immeasurable suffering to many peoples – years of oppression, humiliation, and destruction.
No country has ever suffered as much suffering in its history as Poland under German occupation.
Particularly in this dark time, which we are talking about today, the country was laid waste. Towns and villages were destroyed. After the crushing of the uprising of 1944, no stone was left standing in the capital. Random cruelty and violence permeated everyday life. Scarcely a single Polish family remained untouched by it.
Here at the Westerplatte, as the Chancellor of Germany, I commemorate all Poles who were subjected to unspeakable suffering due to the crimes of the German occupiers.
The horrors of the twentieth century culminated in the Holocaust, the systematic persecution and murder of the European Jews.
I commemorate the six million Jews and all others who suffered a cruel death in German concentration and extermination camps.
I commemorate the many millions of people who lost their lives in battle and in the resistance struggle against Germany.
I commemorate all those who died in innocence as the result of hunger, cold, illness, the violence of war, and its consequences.
I commemorate the sixty million people who lost their lives because of this war that was unleashed by Germany.
There are no words that could even come close to describing the suffering of this war and the Holocaust.
I bow my head before the victims.
We know that we cannot undo the atrocities of the Second World War. The scars will remain forever visible. But we have our own task: to shape the future in the consciousness of our enduring responsibility.
In this spirit, Europe has transformed itself from a continent of horror and violence into a continent of freedom and peace. That this has been possible is nothing more nor less than a miracle.
In the process, we Germans have never forgotten this: That Germany’s partners in the East and West have smoothed this path through a willingness for reconciliation. They have extended the hand of reconciliation to us Germans. We have clasped it in gratitude.
Yes, it is a miracle that in this year we need not only think back to the abysses of European history seventy years ago. It is a miracle that we can also think of the happy days that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, and the unity of Europe twenty years ago. After all, Europe’s path to freedom was only made complete with the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Back then, in the tradition of Solidarnosc in Poland, people everywhere courageously pushed open the gate to freedom. We Germans will never forget
* the role played by our friends in Poland, Hungary, and former Czechoslovakia,
* the role played by Mikhail Gorbachev and our Western partners and allies,
* and the role of the moral power of truth that no one embodied more convincingly and credibly than Pope John Paul II.
It was thus also an issue of Germany’s special responsibility to smooth the path of Poland and the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe into the European Union and NATO, and to stand alongside them.
Yes, it is a miracle, it is a blessing, that we Europeans can today live in freedom and peace. Nothing symbolizes the difference to 1939 better than the close, trusting cooperation between Germany and Poland and the multitude of friendly relations between our two countries.
The unity of Europe and Germany’s friendship with its neighbors owes its strength to the fact that we face our history. The chairmen of the German and Polish Bishops Conferences summed this up in their recently published statement on today’s anniversary. I quote:
”Together we must look to the future, which we would like to approach without ignoring or playing down the historical truth in all its aspects.”
When, in my country, we today also recall the fate of the Germans who lost their home regions as a result of the war, then we always do so in the spirit described by the bishops. We do it in awareness of Germany’s responsibility, with which everything began. We do it without trying to rewrite anything in Germany’s enduring historical responsibility. This will never happen.
And it is precisely in this awareness that today – seventy years later – I have come to Gdansk. To this once sorely afflicted, but now gloriously restored city.
Mr. President, Mr. Minister President, your invitation to me to attend today’s commemoration as Germany’s Federal Chancellor touches me deeply.
I understand this as a sign of our trusting neighborliness, our close partnership, and the true friendship between our two countries, between the people of Germany and Poland. I would like to express my profound thanks!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment