Polen verstehen

Poland – our unknown neighbor. Gerhard Gnauck tells the story, culture, and society of our eastern neighbor with authority and knowledge. It turns out that Poland has been and is more important to us Germans than we think.

In his concise presentation, Gerhard Gnauck looks back at the century since 1918, when Poland and many of its neighboring countries rose from the ruins of empires and gained their independence. He lets eyewitnesses speak and asks what the traditions and experiences of earlier centuries mean for the country today.

After the world war and the reunification of three parts of the country, Poland made its first attempt at democracy with its heterogeneous population. In 1939, this was followed by war, terror, the Holocaust, and the largest displacements in world history. Bloodied and shifted westward, Poland experienced a dictatorship that was eventually overcome peacefully.

This was followed by painful yet successful reforms and accession to NATO and the EU. In 2015, the Kaczynski party PiS began to question many of these successes. The author succeeds in making the worldview, thinking, and actions of these political forces understandable. At the same time, he explores what will become of democracy, the rule of law, a market economy, and good European neighborliness in Poland.