Hardly anyone has followed German-Polish relations so closely in recent years as Rolf Nikel. He was German ambassador to Poland for more than six years. Now he has written a book about the relationship between the two countries, including the mistakes of recent years. Because it is clear to Rolf Nikel that Germany’s policies on Russia, Ukraine and energy have failed. He accuses the government in Warsaw of trying to exploit this situation instead of seizing the “Polish moment”.
ntv.de: “The Germans are hesitating, evading and acting in a way that is difficult to understand,” Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki said before it became known that the German chancellor now wants to supply Leopard tanks to Ukraine after all. Is Morawiecki right?
Rolf Nikel: First of all, it has to be said that the decision to supply the Leopards was taken after all in the end. I was of the opinion that it should have been made earlier. But the fact that a unified Western position has been reached is, in my view, very welcome. For Ukraine, the delivery of these battle tanks is very important, especially in view of the Russian spring offensive that many are expecting. The fact that the Polish Prime Minister has publicly put pressure on the German Chancellor is rather unusual in the relationship between allies and partners. But each has its own idiosyncrasies. There are elections in Poland this year. We must be prepared for Germany to play an important role in this election campaign.
What is the verdict on the decision to supply tanks in Poland? Is the ruling Law and Justice party, or PiS for short, trying to claim this as its own success?
PiS politicians are indeed trying to do that, although one can doubt that the public urging was really helpful. In the end, it was the American decision to supply tanks that led to a change in the German position.
As you said, it’s an election campaign in Poland. But is it enough to dismiss criticism from Poland as an election campaign maneuver?
No, that would be wrong. Poland is affected by the war in Ukraine in a very, very concrete way. Poland is a direct neighbor of Ukraine, many supply lines run directly through Poland. Poland has admirably taken in millions of refugees from Ukraine. Everything that happens in Ukraine affects Poland much more – not only because of geography, but also for historical reasons. Parts of western Ukraine once belonged to Poland, to the Polish-Lithuanian Great Empire from 1918 to 1939. But in addition to geography and history, politics of course also plays a role. We see here an attempt to make political capital out of the failure of Germany’s Russia, Ukraine and energy policies through public criticism. But it’s important to emphasize: That is not the primary motive.
For years, Germany’s Russia policy was a source of dissent between Germany and Poland. Was criticism of it across party lines in Poland?
Yes. Various Polish governments and the Polish public have strongly criticized Germany’s Russia policy in recent years. They kept pointing out to us the energy dependence on Russia and the naive security policy from the Polish point of view. We didn’t want to hear that. With the self-destructive Russian attack on Ukraine, German policy has failed. For Germany, this means a loss of confidence and a weakening of credibility in the region, especially in Poland. With a smart policy of strengthening NATO’s eastern flank and supporting Ukraine, we can regain the lost trust.
You write in your book, “In gross misjudgment of the real situation, the German security policy concept culminated in the false thesis that security in Europe could not be guaranteed against Moscow, but only with it.” Before you became ambassador, you worked in the Chancellor’s Office: How could such a misjudgment have come about?
In a way, my book is also a mea culpa. However, history is open to the future. What appears to be a mistake today in retrospect is not always recognizable as such in the concrete historical situation. But there’s no question about it: We made ourselves dependent on energy policy. We were naive in terms of security policy and believed that we could democratize Russia domestically and domesticate it abroad through our policies. We also believed we could separate an increasingly autocratic Russian domestic policy from economically beneficial cooperation. At the same time, we have not invested enough in security all these years. Perhaps the biggest mistake was that we did not have a Plan B. Somehow, we all believed that Plan A would succeed.
Why was there no such misjudgment of Russia in Polish politics?
For many years, Poland was more dependent on Russia for energy than Germany. However, the Poles changed course in time. In the end, I would say that the central reason was our countries’ different historical experiences with Russia. Russia’s role in German unification in 1871 was a positive one, as it was in reunification in 1990. By contrast, the Poles have consistently negative experiences with Russia. Like Germany, Russia was present at all partitions of Poland, from 1772 to the Hitler-Stalin Pact. While we have made a fundamental turnaround in relations with the Soviet Union and Russia since 1989/90, Poland has remained skeptical. Even after 2014, following the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass, NATO’s measures to strengthen its eastern flank did not go far enough for Poles. Poland was also skeptical about the Minsk negotiations. We, on the other hand, assumed that the problems could be solved through such a political process.
You write that Chancellor Merkel was very friendly toward Poland. But wasn’t she completely indifferent to the objections from Warsaw to Germany’s Russia policy?
No, you can’t say that. I believe that we as the Federal Republic of Germany have tried both to put forward our position within the European Union and to advance a cooperative policy with Russia. Economically, of course, Germany and Europe have also benefited from cheap energy. This is also not about the policies of individuals. It was a systemic failure that affected all federal governments since the end of the Cold War, with strong support from business and large parts of civil society.
How would you describe German-Polish relations today?
You have to differentiate here. Germany and Poland are both good and difficult neighbors. On the one hand, we have a very solid foundation. Since the fall of the Wall, people have come together in a way that we would never have dared to dream back then. Since 1991, three million young people have taken part in German-Polish youth exchanges. There are very successful twinning arrangements between cities, cooperation between universities, cross-border cooperation, cooperation between police and customs, and so on. Economic exchange is also developing extremely dynamically. Germany has long been the most important trading partner for Poland; conversely, Poland is Germany’s fifth largest export partner and fourth largest import partner. With the four Visegrád states together, i.e. Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, we have a far higher trade volume than with our largest economic partner, the People’s Republic of China. These are very strong pillars on which the relationship rests.
But?
We have a number of problems. One is the consequences of Germany’s policy toward Russia. The second is the dispute over history. And the third is the conflict over the rule of law, which is essentially being fought between Brussels and Warsaw. In all three areas, things are difficult at the moment.
How strongly do these conflicts hinge on the current governing party, the PiS?
Poland is indeed highly polarized in terms of domestic politics. On the issue of the rule of law, the opposition in Poland has a very different position than the government. On the other two issues, this is not so clear.
Your book says that the PiS government is trying to weaken German influence in Europe through all kinds of informal alliances and to strengthen its own regional leadership role.
This refers above all to the so-called Three Seas Initiative, in which the eastern EU states between the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas cooperate. Geographically, Germany is located on one of the three seas – the same one as Poland, the Baltic Sea. Nevertheless, the Polish government has not yet been able to bring itself to declare us a full member. Officially, the Three Seas Initiative is about strengthening the infrastructure in the region, and that’s totally fine. But there are prominent voices in Poland that see this concept as an attempt to weaken Germany’s role in this region. That was very concrete when the American president was still Donald Trump.
The German Foreign Office subsequently commissioned a committee of experts under your leadership to develop a concept (pdf) for this site.
From our point of view, the place should also be a memorial. It was very important to us to design a concept that also includes diverse encounters, especially for the younger generation. This must now move forward quickly. This is what the German civil society initiative, which originally initiated the project, expects. And that is also what the Poles expect.
Couldn’t the Russian invasion of Ukraine also have been a new start for German-Polish relations?
I think that Germany, with its policy of turning the tide, has moved toward Poland’s Russia policy as never before. This could be the initial spark for a new common eastern policy supported by both sides. The Polish government has so far preferred to try to make political capital out of the situation that has arisen. There is a danger that this “Polish moment,” in which Poland benefits from a new attitude on the part of Germany, will pass more quickly than some people imagine.
What is your personal relationship with Poland?
Very good. My wife and I have felt very comfortable in the six years we have been in Poland. We enjoyed traveling to Poland often, both on business and in our private lives. We got to know the diversity of the landscape and the great culture, which is far too little known in Germany. We made many friends with whom we are still in contact. I have great sympathy for Poland and suffer from the fact that Polish-German relations are so difficult in some areas at the moment. This is also one of the reasons why I wrote the book “Enemies – Strangers – Friends: Poland and the Germans”. Enemies have become friends. But in many ways we are still strangers to each other.
Hubertus Volmer spoke with Rolf Nikel
