Poland, Russia and Germany: The burden of history

A testy relationship with the two big neighbours

POLAND'S misfortune has been to be sandwiched between two big and often unfriendly powers, Germany and Russia (Poles say wryly that their historical mission is to kill Germans for duty and Russians for pleasure). Modern diplomacy with both is correspondingly tricky.

The latest row is with Russia, where three Poles--two embassy officials and a journalist--have been beaten up within a week. This was in retaliation for the mugging of three teenagers, children of Russian diplomats, late at night in Warsaw. It was an echo of cold-war habits, when any perceived harassment of Soviet diplomats abroad was swiftly matched in Moscow.

The incident in Warsaw seemed sad but unremarkable. But the Russian reaction was extraordinary. An angry President Vladimir Putin went on television to condemn the mugging. The Polish ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry, which demanded an official apology. "This disgraceful incident cannot be called a coincidence," said a spokesman. Dmitry Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian parliament, the Duma, blamed it on anti-Russian hysteria. Another Duma deputy said the attack was facilitated by Polish attempts to revise the history of the second world war.

Poland and Russia certainly see history differently. To most Poles, Stalin's Soviet Union was first a co-conspirator with Hitler's Germany, and then a murderous occupying power. Under Mr Putin, Russia glorifies the Soviet Union's defeat of Hitler, and whitewashes everything else. Newer issues grate too. Some Polish politicians have backed Chechen rebels. Poland strongly supported the "orange revolution" in Ukraine, which Russia resisted. The Poles champion their persecuted ethnic kin in Belarus, whose authoritarian regime is one of Russia's closest allies.

The Russians accordingly see the Poles as ungrateful, meddling American lackeys. This places Poland in a bind. The obvious thing to do is to protest, but that only strengthens Russia's argument that Poland (like the Baltic states) is a shrill Russophobe that is out of line with the rest of the European Union. This argument seems to sway the EU, which regards all the ex-captive nations' rows with their former master as bilateral matters. Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, in particular, has seen good relations with Mr Putin as more important than Polish neuroses.

That could change if Angela Merkel, the centre-right candidate, replaces Mr Schroder after next month's German election. Ms Merkel was in Warsaw this week, promising that Germany would treat Poland with equal consideration to France and that the EU's eastern policy would not be made over Poland's head. A Merkel win would be good news for conservatives in Poland, whose foreign-policy stance is overshadowed by the savvy ex-communist president, Aleksander Kwasniewski.

But there's a problem with Ms Merkel too. She supports the building of a museum in Berlin to commemorate the expulsion of millions of Germans from her country's eastern territories (now mostly part of Poland) after the war. This is a favourite cause of the German right, but it is anathema to Poles, most of whom think the Germans got what they deserved.

Poland has testy relations with its two big neighbours.