Reverend brothers of the Council!
Allow us, venerable brethren, before the Council takes its leave, to share with our closest western neighbors the joyful news that next year – in the year of the Lord 1966 – the Church of Christ in Poland, and together with it the entire Polish people, will celebrate the millennium of its baptism and thus also the millennium of its national and state existence.
We hereby invite you in a fraternal, but also in the most solemn manner, to take part in the church celebrations of the Polish Millennium; the climax of the Polish Te deum laudamus is to take place at the beginning of May 1966 on Jasna Gära, at the Holy Mother of God, the Queen of Poland.
The following remarks may serve as a historical and at the same time very topical commentary on our millennium and perhaps, with the help of God, bring our two peoples even closer together in mutual dialog.
It is historically certain that in the year 966, the Polish Duke Mieszko I, through the influence of his wife, the Czech princess Dombrowka, was the first Polish duke to receive the holy sacrament of baptism together with his court.
From this moment on, the Christian missionary work in Poland – which had already been proclaimed in our country by Christian apostles for generations – was spread throughout the entire Polish territory.
Mieszko’s son and successor, Bolesław Chrobry (the Brave), continued his father’s work of Christianization and obtained from Pope Silvester II the establishment of a separate Polish hierarchy with the first metropolis in Gniezno (Gnesen) and three suffragan dioceses of Kraków, Wrocław and Kołobrzeg (Kraków, Wrocław and Kolberg). Gniezno remained the metropolis of the Wrocław diocese until 1821. In the year 1000, the then ruler of the Roman Empire, Emperor Otto III, together with Bolesław Chrobry, made a pilgrimage to the martyr shrine of St. Wojciech-Adalbert, who had died a martyr’s death among the Baltic Prussians a few years earlier. The two rulers, the Roman and the future Polish king (he was crowned king shortly before his death), walked barefoot a long way to the holy bones in Gniezno, which they then venerated with great devotion and inner emotion.
These are the historical beginnings of Christian Poland and at the same time the beginnings of its national and state unity. On these foundations – Christian, ecclesiastical, national and state at the same time – it was further developed by rulers, kings, bishops and priests through all generations for 1000 years. The symbiosis of Christianity, church and state existed in Poland from the very beginning and was never actually broken. Over time, it gave rise to an almost universal Polish way of thinking: Polish is also Catholic. It also gave rise to the Polish style of religion, in which the religious has been closely interwoven with the national from the very beginning, with all the positive and negative aspects of this problem.
The main expression of this religious lifestyle has always been the Polish cult of the Virgin Mary. The oldest Polish churches are dedicated to the Mother of God (including the Gniezno Metropolitan Cathedral); the oldest Polish song, the lullaby of the Polish people, so to speak, is a Marian song that is still sung today: “Bogurodzica-dziewica, Bogiem Sławiona Maryja” (Virgin Mary, Mother of God). Tradition links its creation with St. Wojciech, just as the legend does with the Polish white eagles in the Gniezno nest. These and similar traditions and folk legends, which entwine the facts of history like ivy, have so closely interwoven the common ground of the people and Christianity that they simply cannot be separated without harm. It is from them that all subsequent Polish cultural events, the entire Polish national and cultural development, are illuminated, indeed to a large extent shaped.
The most recent historiography gives these beginnings of ours the following political and cultural significance: “In the encounter with the empire of Otto the Great a millennium ago, Poland’s entry into Latin Christendom took place, and through the admirably skillful policy of Mieszko I. and then Bolesław the Brave, it became an equal member of Otto III’s universally conceived Imperium Romanum, which aimed to encompass the entire non-Byzantine world, thus making a decisive contribution to the shaping of Eastern Europe…”
This laid the foundations and created the form and conditions for the fruitful German-Polish relations to come and the spread of Western culture.
Unfortunately, German-Polish relations have not always remained fruitful in the later course of history and have, so to speak, turned into a kind of neighborly “hereditary enmity” in recent centuries. More on this later.
The annexation of the new Polish kingdom to the West, with the help of the papacy, to which the Polish kings repeatedly made themselves available, brought about a lively and extremely rich exchange in every respect between Poland and the Western peoples in the Middle Ages, especially with the southern German lands, but also with Burgundy and Flanders, with Italy and later with France and Austria and the Italian Renaissance states, whereby naturally Poland, as the younger state, the youngest of the older brothers of Christian Europe, was initially more of a taker than a giver.
Not only goods were exchanged between Kalisz and Kraköw, the Polish royal city of the Middle Ages, and between Bamberg, Speyer, Mainz, Prague, Paris, Cologne and Lyon and Clairvaux and Ghent. The Benedictines, the Cistercians and later the mendicant orders came from the West and were immediately given a boost in Poland, in the new Christian territory; then, in the Middle Ages, German Magdeburg law was added, which was of great service in the founding of Polish towns. German merchants, architects, artists and settlers also flocked to Poland, many of whom were absorbed into the Polish nation: Their German surnames were left to them. In Kraków’s large St. Mary’s Church we can still find the epitaphs of numerous German families from the Middle Ages, all of whom became Polish over time, from which Hitler and others – of unfortunate memory – drew the simple conclusion that Kraków and the whole of Poland were just a German settlement and should be treated accordingly. – The classic example of German-Polish cooperation in culture and art in the High Middle Ages is probably the world-famous sculptor Veit Stoß from Nuremberg (Wit Stwosz), who worked in Kraków for almost his entire life; his works there are all inspired by the genius loci of the Polish surroundings: He created his own school of artists in Kraków, which continued to have an effect for generations and fertilized the Polish countryside.
The Poles greatly honored their brothers from the Christian West, who came to them as messengers of true culture, and never concealed their non-Polish tribal origins. We truly owe a great deal to Western – including German – culture.
Apostles and saints also came to us from the West, and they are probably among the most valuable gifts that the Occident has given us. Their beneficial social work can still be felt in many places today. Among the best known are St. Bruno of Querfurt, known as the “Bishop of the Pagans”, who evangelized the Slavic and Lithuanian north-east in agreement with Bolesław Chrobry. Then, in particular, St. Hedwig (Jadwiga), Duchess of Silesia, born in Andechs, wife of the Polish Piast prince Henry the Bearded (Brodaty) of Silesia and founder of the Cistercian nunnery of Trzebnica (Trebnitz), where she is buried. In the 13th century she became the greatest benefactress of the Polish people in the then western territories of Piast Poland, in Silesia. It is historically quite certain that in order to serve the Polish common people, she even learned the Polish language. After her death and her early canonization, crowds of Polish and German people flocked to her tomb in Trzebnica – later called Trebnitz. And they still do so today in their thousands and thousands. Nobody reproaches our great national saint for being of German blood; on the contrary, apart from a few nationalist fanatics, she is generally regarded as the best expression of Christian bridge-building between Poland and Germany – and we are pleased to hear the same opinion quite often on the German side. Only holy people can build bridges between peoples, only those who have a pure opinion and clean hands. They do not want to take anything away from their brother nation, neither language, nor customs, nor land, nor material goods; on the contrary: they bring it highly valuable cultural goods, and they usually give it the most valuable thing they possess: themselves, and thus throw the seed of their own personality into the fertile soil of the new missionary neighboring country; this then bears a hundredfold fruit, according to the Savior’s word, and that for generations. This is how we see St. Hewig of Silesia in Poland, as well as all the other missionaries and martyrs who worked in Poland from the countries to the west, headed by the aforementioned martyr apostle Wojciech-Adalbert from Prague. This is probably the most profound difference between genuine Christian cultural mission and the so-called colonialism that is rightly frowned upon today.
After the year 1200, as the Polish country became more and more Christian in its people and institutions, its own Polish saints grew up.
As early as the 12th century, it was Bishop Stanislaus Szczepanowski of Kraków, confessor and martyr, who was slain at the altar by King Bolesław the Bold. (The king himself died as a saintly penitent in exile in a monastery in Upper Austria). At the tomb of St. Stanislaus in the royal cathedral church of Kraków, the majestic song in his honor was composed, today sung everywhere in Poland in Latin: “Gaude mater Polonia, prole foecunda nobili…”
Then the holy Polish triumvirate from the Odrowaz family (an ancient family that had its seat on the Oder in Upper Silesia for many centuries) appeared in the firmament. The greatest of them is St. Hyacinth – known as Jacek in Polish – a Dominican apostle who walked the length and breadth of Eastern Europe from Moravia to the Baltic, from Lithuania to Kiev. His relative, Blessed Czesław, also a Dominican, who defended the former city of Wrocław against the Mongols and is buried in today’s Wrocław in the newly built Wojciech (Adalbert) Church, is revered by the pious population as the patron saint of the city that was rebuilt from the ruins of 1945. And finally, Blessed Bronisława, according to tradition the sister of Blessed Czesław, a Norbertine from Silesia, rests in Kraköw.
The number of stars in the sky of saints grew: Blessed Kunigunde in Sącz, Bogumil and Blessed Jolanta in Gniezno, Władysław in Mazovia, and the saintly Queen Jadwiga, a new Polish Hedwig awaiting canonization, at the Royal Castle in Kraków. Later, new saints and martyrs were added: St. Stanislaus Kostka, Jesuit novice in Rome, St. John Kantius, professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, St. Andrew Bobola, martyr in eastern Poland, canonized in 1938, and other saints up to Franciscan Father Maximilian Kolbe, the martyr of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who gave his life voluntarily for his confreres. There are currently around 30 Polish candidates awaiting canonization and beatification in Rome. – Our nation honors its saints and regards them as the noblest fruit that a Christian country can produce.
The above-mentioned Polish university in Kraków was the first of its kind in the whole of Eastern Europe apart from Prague. Founded in 1363 by King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki), it was for centuries a center of not only political but also universal European cultural influence in all directions, in the best sense of the word. – In the 15th and 16th centuries, when the Silesian Piast lands were no longer part of the Polish kingdom, thousands of students and professors from Wratislavia (Breslau), Raciborz (Ratibor), Gliwice (Gleiwitz), Glogow (Glogau), Nyse (Neisse), Opole (Oppeln) and many other Silesian cities studied and lectured in Kraków. Their names and the names of their birthplaces are listed in this Polish-Latin idiom in the old university registers. Nicolaus Kopernik (Copernicus) is also mentioned by name. He studied astronomy in Kraków under Professor Martin Bylica. This university has produced hundreds of scholars of the highest scientific rank and given them to European culture: mathematicians, physicists, physicians, legal scholars, astronomers, historians and cultural philosophers. Among them was the famous Paulus Włodkowic, Rector of Krakow University, who at the Council of Constance taught frankly and freely, with the highest scholarly authority, a religious and humane tolerance unheard of at the time and with great personal courage took the position that the pagan peoples of Eastern Europe were not fair game that should and may be converted with fire and sword. They have natural human rights just like Christians…
Włodkowic was, so to speak, the classic expression of Polish tolerant and liberal thinking. His theses were directed against the German Knights of the Order, the so-called “Crusaders”, who at that time in the Slavic north and in the Prussian and Baltic countries converted the indigenous people there with fire and sword and over the centuries became a terrible and extremely compromising burden for European Christianity and its symbol, the cross, but also for the church in whose name they appeared. Even today, after many generations and centuries, the term “Krzyżak” (Crusader) is still a swearword and a spectre for every Pole and is unfortunately all too often identified with Germanness from time immemorial. – The Prussians, who brought all things German in Polish lands into general disrepute, later emerged from the settlement area of the “Crusaders”. They are represented in the historical development by the following names: Albrecht of Prussia, Frederick the Great, Bismarck and finally Hitler.
Frederick II has always been regarded by the entire Polish nation as the main author of the partition of Poland, and undoubtedly not without good reason. For a hundred and fifty years, the Polish nation of millions lived divided by the three great powers of the time: Prussia, Russia and Austria, until it was able to slowly emerge from its grave at the end of the First World War in 1918; weakened to the utmost, it then began a new independent existence again with great difficulty…
After a short period of independence of about 20 years (1918 to 1939), what is euphemistically referred to simply as the Second World War, but which for us Poles was intended as total annihilation and extermination, came upon the Polish people through no fault of their own. A terrible dark night fell over our poor fatherland, the likes of which we had not experienced for generations. It is generally referred to as the “German occupation” and has gone down in Polish history under this name. We were all powerless and defenceless. The country was littered with concentration camps where the chimneys of the crematoria smoked day and night. Over six million Polish citizens, the majority of them of Jewish origin, had to pay for this occupation with their lives. The leading Polish intelligentsia was simply swept away. Two thousand Polish priests and five bishops (a quarter of the episcopate at the time) were killed in camps. Hundreds of priests and tens of thousands of civilians were shot on the spot at the outbreak of the war (778 priests in the Kulm diocese alone). The diocese of Wloctawek alone lost 48 percent of its priests during the war, the diocese of Kulm 47 percent. Many others were resettled. All secondary and high schools were closed. The seminaries were closed. Every German uniform, not only the SS, became not only a spectre for all Poles, but also the object of German hatred. All Polish families had to mourn their deaths. We do not want to list everything so as not to reopen the wounds that have not yet healed. If we remember this terrible Polish night, it is only so that people today can understand us to some extent, ourselves and our current way of thinking… We try to forget. We hope that time – the great divine kairos – will slowly heal the spiritual wounds.
After all that has happened in the past – unfortunately only in the very recent past – it is not surprising that the entire Polish nation is under the heavy pressure of an elementary need for security and still views its closest neighbor in the West with suspicion. This mental attitude is, so to speak, our generational problem, which, God forbid, will and must disappear with good will. In the severe political and spiritual hardships of the nation, in its centuries of division, the Catholic Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary have always remained the lifeline and symbol of the national unity of the people, together with the Polish family. In all the struggles for freedom during the period of oppression, the Poles took to the barricades with these symbols, the white eagles on one side – Our Lady on the other side of the flag of freedom. The motto was always: “For your freedom and ours.”
This is a general outline of the thousand-year development of Polish cultural history with a special focus on the German-Polish neighborhood. The strain on mutual relations is still great and is exacerbated by the so-called “hot potato” of this neighborhood. The Polish western border on the Oder and Neisse rivers is, as we well understand, for Germany an extremely bitter fruit of the last war of mass extermination – together with the suffering of the millions of refugees and displaced Germans (by inter-allied order of the victorious powers – Potsdam 1945!). A large part of the population had left these areas out of fear of the Russian front and fled to the West. – For our fatherland, which did not emerge from the mass murder as a victorious state, but weakened to the extreme, it is a question of existence (not a question of “greater living space”!); unless one wanted to squeeze a population of over 30 million people into the narrow corridor of a “Generalgouvernement” from 1939 to 1945 – without western territories; but also without eastern territories, from which millions of Polish people had to stream over into the “Potsdam western territories” since 1945. Where were they supposed to go at that time, since the so-called Generalgouvernement, together with the capital Warsaw, lay in ruins? The waves of destruction of the last war have not only swept over the Polish lands once, as in Germany, but several times since 1914, back and forth like apocalyptic horsemen, and each time they have left behind rubble and ruins, poverty, disease, epidemics and tears and death and a growing complex of retaliation and hatred.
Dear German brothers,
don’t be sorry for this list of what has happened in the last part of our thousand years! It is not so much an accusation as a justification of our own! We know very well how very large parts of the German population were under superhuman National Socialist pressure of conscience for years, we know the terrible inner hardships to which righteous and responsible German bishops were exposed at the time, to mention only the names of Cardinal von Faulhaber, von Galen, von Preysing. We know about the martyrs of the White Rose, the resistance fighters of July 20th, we know that many laymen and priests sacrificed their lives (Lichtenberg, Metzger, Klausener and many others). Thousands of Germans shared the fate of our Polish brothers as Christians and communists in the concentration camps…
And despite all this, despite this almost hopelessly burdened situation with the past, it is precisely from this situation, dear brothers, that we call out to you: Let us try to forget! No polemics, no further cold war, but the beginning of a dialog, as it is sought everywhere today by the Council and by Pope Paul Vl.
If there is genuine good will on both sides – and that is not to be doubted – then a serious dialog must succeed and bear good fruit over time – despite everything, despite hot potatoes. – It seems to us, especially in the ecumenical council, to be the order of the day that we begin this dialog at the episcopal pastoral level, and without hesitation, that we get to know each other better, our mutual folk customs, the religious cult and lifestyle, rooted in the past and conditioned precisely by this cultural past.
We have tried to prepare for the millennium with the entire Polish people of God through the so-called Great Novena under the high patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For nine years (1957 to 1965), in the spirit of “per Mariam ad Jesum”, we dedicated the pulpit in Poland, as well as the entire pastoral care, to important modern pastoral care problems and social tasks: Youth pastoral care, social construction in justice and love, social dangers, national examination of conscience, marriage and family life, catechetical tasks and the like.
The whole faithful people also took a spiritually active part in the Ecumenical Council through prayer, sacrifices and works of penance. During the Council sessions, petitionary prayers were held in all parishes, and the holy image of Our Lady as well as the confessionals and communion benches in Częstochowa were besieged for weeks by parish delegations from all over Poland who wanted to help through personal sacrifice and prayer.
Finally, in this year, the last of the great novena, we all consecrated ourselves to the Mother of God, bishops, priests, religious and all classes of our faithful people. Only the help and grace of our Savior can save us from the immense moral and social dangers that threaten the soul of our people, but also its biological existence, which we want to implore through the mediation of his Mother, the Blessed Virgin. Full of childlike trust, we throw ourselves into her arms. Only in this way can we become inwardly free as servant and at the same time free children – even as “slaves of God”, as St. Paul calls them.
We ask you, Catholic shepherds of the German people, to try in your own way to help celebrate our Christian millennium, be it through prayer or through a special day of remembrance. We will be grateful for every gesture of this kind. We also ask you to convey our greetings and thanks to our German Protestant brethren who are struggling with us and with you to find solutions to our difficulties.
In this most Christian and at the same time very human spirit, we extend our hands to you in the benches of the Council that is drawing to a close, granting forgiveness and asking for forgiveness. And when you, German bishops and Council Fathers, fraternally grasp our outstretched hands, only then will we be able to celebrate our millennium in Poland with a clear conscience in a completely Christian manner. We cordially invite you to Poland.
May the merciful Redeemer and the Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland, Regina Mundi and Mater Ecclesiae.
Rome, November 18, 1965
The signatories of the Polish letter:
Stefan Cardinalis Wyszyliski, Primas Poloniae Antonius Baraniak, Archiepiscopus Posnaniensis Bolesiaw Kominek, Archiepp. Tit. in Wrociaw Carolus Wojtyla, Archiepiscopus Metropolita Cracoviensis Antono Pawlowski, Episcopus Vladislaviensis Casimirus Joseph Kowalski, Episcopus Culmensis Michael Klepacz, Episcopus Lodzensis, Ord. Czestaw Falkowski, Episcopus Lomzensis Petrus Kalwa, Episcopus Lublinensis Franciscus Jop, Episcopus in Opole Herbertus Bednorz, Episcopus Coadiutor Katovicensis Stefan Barela, Episcopus Czestochoviensis Bogdan Sikorski, Episcopus Plocensis Edmund Nowicki, Episcopus Gedanensis Joannes Jaroszewicz, Admin. Apost. Kielcensis Jerzy Ablewicz, Episcopus Tarnovlensis Joseph Drzazga, Episcopus Vic. co. p. Olsztyn Stanistaw Jakiel, Vic. Cap. Przemygl Andrzej Wronka, Episcopus Auxil. in Wroclaw Venceslaus Majewski, Episcopus Auxil. Varsaviensis Georgius Stroba, Episcopus Auxil. in Gorzöw Franciscus Jedwabski, Episcopus Auxil. in Pozriafi Julianus Groblicki, Episcopus Auxil. Cracoviensis Carolus Pgkala, Episcopus Auxil. in Tarnöw Zygfryd Kowalski, Episcopus Auxil. Culmensis Georgius Modzelewski, Episcopus Auxil. Varsaviensis Jan Wosifiski, Episcopus Auxil. Plocensis Bogdan Bejze, Episcopus Auxil. Lodzensis Thaddaeus Szyagrzyk, Episcopus Auxil. Czestochoviensis Venceslaus Skomorucha, Episcopus Auxil. in Siedlce Jan Zargba, Episcopus Auxil. Vladislaviensis Henricus Grzondziel, Episcopus Auxil. in Opole Joseph Kurpas, Episcopus Auxil. Katovicensis Ladislaus Rubin, Episcopus Auxil. Gnesnensis Paulus Latusek, Episcopus Auxil. in Wroclaw Joannes Czerniak, Episcopus Auxil. in Gnienzno
The reply of the German bishops to the Polish bishops of December 5, 1965
Most reverend brothers in the episcopate!
It was with emotion and joy that we received your message of 18 November this year and your kind invitation to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the Christianization of the Polish people. We regard it as a precious fruit of our common Council work that you were able to address this word to us. We gratefully accept it and hope to be able to continue the dialog we have begun in Poland and Germany. With God’s help, this conversation will promote and strengthen the fraternity between the Polish and German peoples.
We are aware of how difficult it was and still is for many Christians in Europe, after the horrors of the Second World War, to hold on wholeheartedly to the fundamental truth of our faith that we are children of the heavenly Father and brothers in Christ. This Christian brotherhood found its longed-for expression at the Cologne Cathedral Jubilee in 1948 with the visit of French and English cardinals and bishops. May the millennium of Poland’s baptism also be such a sign in the coming year.
In your letter, venerable brothers, you reminded us of the many ties that have bound the Polish people to Christian Europe for centuries and the role they have played – and, we hope, will continue to play – in the history of this Christian Europe. You had the generosity to mention first and foremost examples from all these centuries that are a credit to both your people and ours, examples of joint work, sincere respect, fruitful exchange and mutual support, although all of this could have taken a back seat to the injustice and suffering that the Polish people have had to bear throughout history. It is a comforting reminder of the future we hope for and must strive for by all means when you remind us of how the Polish Church in the Middle Ages was involved in manifold exchanges with German towns, parishes and religious orders across all borders. It touches us deeply that we are united in the veneration of St. Hedwig, who was of German blood and yet – as you write – the greatest benefactress of the Polish people in the 13th century. We undoubtedly owe these bright sides of Polish-German relations in history to our common Christian faith. We are therefore convinced and agree with you, venerable brothers, that if we want to be brothers of Christ beyond all differences, if we bishops, as became clear at this Council, want to be first and foremost the college of pastors who serve the one people of God, and if we also lead our particular churches in this way, then the shadows that unfortunately still lie over our two peoples must recede.
Terrible things have been done to the Polish people by Germans and in the name of the German people. We know that we must bear the consequences of the war, which are also difficult for our country. We understand that the period of German occupation has left a burning wound which is difficult to heal, even with the best will in the world. We are all the more grateful that, in view of this fact, you recognize with true Christian magnanimity how a large part of the German population was also under heavy pressure of conscience during the National Socialist era. We are grateful that, in view of the millions of Polish victims of that time, you also remember the Germans who resisted the evil spirit and in some cases gave their lives. It is a consolation to us that many of our priests and faithful prayed and sacrificed for the disenfranchised Polish people on that night of hatred and took prison and death upon themselves for this Christian love. We are grateful that, in addition to the immeasurable suffering of the Polish people, you also remember the hard lot of the millions of displaced Germans and refugees.
Of course, we agree that we cannot help ourselves by offsetting guilt and injustice. We are children of our common heavenly Father. All human injustice is first of all a guilt before God, and forgiveness must first be requested from him. The Lord’s Prayer is addressed to him first: “Forgive us our trespasses!” Then we can also ask for forgiveness from our neighbors with an honest heart. So we also ask to forget, indeed we ask to forgive. Forgetting is a human thing. The request for forgiveness is a call to everyone who has been wronged to see this injustice with the merciful eyes of God and to allow a new beginning.
This beginning is particularly burdened by the bitter consequences of the war started and lost by Germany. Millions of Poles had to move from the East to the territories assigned to them. We are well aware of what these territories mean for Poland today. But millions of Germans also had to leave their homeland, where their fathers and ancestors lived. They had not moved into the country as conquerors, but had been called by the local princes over the centuries. That is why we must tell you in love and truthfulness: when these Germans speak of the “right to a homeland”, there is – with a few exceptions – no aggressive intention. Our Silesians, Pomeranians and East Prussians want to say that they have rightfully lived in their old homeland and that they remain attached to it. They are aware that a young generation is now growing up there who also regard the land that was assigned to their fathers as their homeland. Christian love tries to empathize with the concerns and needs of others and thus to overcome tensions and borders. It seeks to eradicate the spirit of hatred, enmity and revanchism. In this way, it will contribute to overcoming all the unfortunate consequences of the war in a solution that is satisfactory and just for all sides. You may be convinced that no German bishop wants and will ever promote anything other than the fraternal relationship between the two peoples in full sincerity and honest dialog.
The experience of the Council can give us courage for such brotherhood of good will. Even at the Council, the paths were not always clear. The goal was not always clear and obvious, and the Fathers often hesitated at crossroads, but then, by God’s grace, a way was shown to us and sometimes a surprising solution was given. So we hope with you that God will also show our two peoples solutions in the future if we give him proof of our good will. As a sign of our good will, venerable brothers, and in sincere gratitude for your invitation, we want to come as pilgrims to your Marian shrine in Czestochowa and share in your joy and that of all your people. We want to pray with you at the shrines where the Polish people often and especially in these times seek strength and blessing from God. We promise to ask our faithful to unite themselves with our and your prayers in the coming Marian month.
We want to do everything we can to ensure that this connection is never broken. In 1968, the German Catholic Congress will take place in Essen. In the same year, the diocese of Meissen will celebrate the thousandth anniversary of its foundation. It would be a great pleasure for us and our faithful to be able to welcome Polish bishops on these occasions. In our invitations we share with you the wish that the meeting of the bishops and the dialog that has begun may continue in all areas of life of our two peoples. We warmly welcome all steps that can serve this goal. It is therefore with pleasure that we fulfill your request to convey your special greetings to our Protestant brothers in Germany. Furthermore, in our efforts to achieve mutual understanding, we can know that we are united with all people of good will.
Most reverend brothers! The Council has brought us together in a holy place to work and pray together. The grottoes of St. Peter’s contain the small chapel of Our Lady of Częstochowa. There we also found the image of St. Hedwig, whom your people particularly venerate and whom you regard “as the best expression of a Christian bridge-builder between Poland and Germany”.
We want to learn from this great saint to treat each other with reverence and love. At the end of your letter are the precious words that can open up a new future for our two peoples: “We stretch out our hands to you in the benches of the closing Council, grant forgiveness and ask for forgiveness.” With fraternal reverence, we grasp the offered hands. May the God of peace grant us, through the intercession of the “regina pacis”, that never again may the evil spirit of hatred part our hands!
Rome, December 5, 1965
The names of the German signatories:
Jos. Card. Frings, Archbishop of Cologne Julius Card. Döpfner, Archbishop of Munich and Freising Lorenz Card. Jaeger, Archbishop of Paderborn Josef Schneider, Archbishop of Bamberg Hermann Schäufele, Archbishop of Freiburg Alfred Bengsch, Archbishop, Bishop of Berlin Joseph Schröffer, Bishop of Eichstätt Franz Hengsbach, Bishop of Essen Adolf Bolte, Bishop of Fulda Hermann Volk, Bishop of Mainz Rudolf Graber, Bishop of Regensburg Isidor Marcus Emanuel, Bishop of Speyer Carl Jos. Leiprecht, Bishop of Rottenburg Josef Stangl, Bishop of Würzburg Wilhelm Kempf, Bishop of Limburg Matthias Wehr, Bishop of Trier Josef Stimpfle, Bishop of Augsburg Heinrich Maria Janssen, Bishop of Hildesheim Helmut Hermann Wittler, Bishop of Osnabrück Johannes Pohlschneider, Bishop of Aachen Otto Spülbeck, Bishop of Meissen > Joseph Höffner, Bishop of Münster Gerhard Schaffran, Bishop and Chapter Vicar in Görlitz Heinrich Pachowiak, Auxiliary Bishop in Hildesheim Walter Kampe, Auxiliary Bishop in Limburg Johannes v. RudIoff, Auxiliary Bishop in Hamburg Augustinus Frotz, Auxiliary Bishop in Cologne Eduard Schick, Auxiliary Bishop in Fulda Hugo Aufderbeck, Auxiliary Bishop in Erfurt Joseph Buchkremer, Auxiliary Bishop in Aachen Heinrich Tenhumberg, Auxiliary Bishop in Münster i.W. Alfons Kempf, Auxiliary Bishop in Würzburg Julius Angerhausen, Auxiliary Bishop in Essen Karl Gnädinger, Auxiliary Bishop in Freiburg Joseph Zimmermann, Auxiliary Bishop in Augsburg Carl Schmidt, Auxiliary Bishop in Trier FriedrichRintelen, Auxiliary Bishop in Magdeburg >r Josephus Hiltl, Auxiliary Bishop in Regensburg Wilhelm Cleven, Auxiliary Bishop in Cologne Bernardus Stein, Auxiliary Bishop in Trier Bernhard Schräder, Auxiliary Bishop in Schwerin K Josef Maria Reuss, Auxiliary Bishop in Mainz
Reverend brothers of the Council!
Allow us, venerable brethren, before the Council takes its leave, to share with our closest western neighbors the joyful news that next year – in the year of the Lord 1966 – the Church of Christ in Poland, and together with it the entire Polish people, will celebrate the millennium of its baptism and thus also the millennium of its national and state existence.
We hereby invite you in a fraternal, but also in the most solemn manner, to take part in the church celebrations of the Polish Millennium; the climax of the Polish Te deum laudamus is to take place at the beginning of May 1966 on Jasna Gära, at the Holy Mother of God, the Queen of Poland.
The following remarks may serve as a historical and at the same time very topical commentary on our millennium and perhaps, with the help of God, bring our two peoples even closer together in mutual dialog.
It is historically certain that in the year 966, the Polish Duke Mieszko I, through the influence of his wife, the Czech princess Dombrowka, was the first Polish duke to receive the holy sacrament of baptism together with his court.
From this moment on, the Christian missionary work in Poland – which had already been proclaimed in our country by Christian apostles for generations – was spread throughout the entire Polish territory.
Mieszko’s son and successor, Bolesław Chrobry (the Brave), continued his father’s work of Christianization and obtained from Pope Silvester II the establishment of a separate Polish hierarchy with the first metropolis in Gniezno (Gnesen) and three suffragan dioceses of Kraków, Wrocław and Kołobrzeg (Kraków, Wrocław and Kolberg). Gniezno remained the metropolis of the Wrocław diocese until 1821. In the year 1000, the then ruler of the Roman Empire, Emperor Otto III, together with Bolesław Chrobry, made a pilgrimage to the martyr shrine of St. Wojciech-Adalbert, who had died a martyr’s death among the Baltic Prussians a few years earlier. The two rulers, the Roman and the future Polish king (he was crowned king shortly before his death), walked barefoot a long way to the holy bones in Gniezno, which they then venerated with great devotion and inner emotion.
These are the historical beginnings of Christian Poland and at the same time the beginnings of its national and state unity. On these foundations – Christian, ecclesiastical, national and state at the same time – it was further developed by rulers, kings, bishops and priests through all generations for 1000 years. The symbiosis of Christianity, church and state existed in Poland from the very beginning and was never actually broken. Over time, it gave rise to an almost universal Polish way of thinking: Polish is also Catholic. It also gave rise to the Polish style of religion, in which the religious has been closely interwoven with the national from the very beginning, with all the positive and negative aspects of this problem.
The main expression of this religious lifestyle has always been the Polish cult of the Virgin Mary. The oldest Polish churches are dedicated to the Mother of God (including the Gniezno Metropolitan Cathedral); the oldest Polish song, the lullaby of the Polish people, so to speak, is a Marian song that is still sung today: “Bogurodzica-dziewica, Bogiem Sławiona Maryja” (Virgin Mary, Mother of God). Tradition links its creation with St. Wojciech, just as the legend does with the Polish white eagles in the Gniezno nest. These and similar traditions and folk legends, which entwine the facts of history like ivy, have so closely interwoven the common ground of the people and Christianity that they simply cannot be separated without harm. It is from them that all subsequent Polish cultural events, the entire Polish national and cultural development, are illuminated, indeed to a large extent shaped.
The most recent historiography gives these beginnings of ours the following political and cultural significance: “In the encounter with the empire of Otto the Great a millennium ago, Poland’s entry into Latin Christendom took place, and through the admirably skillful policy of Mieszko I. and then Bolesław the Brave, it became an equal member of Otto III’s universally conceived Imperium Romanum, which aimed to encompass the entire non-Byzantine world, thus making a decisive contribution to the shaping of Eastern Europe…”
This laid the foundations and created the form and conditions for the fruitful German-Polish relations to come and the spread of Western culture.
Unfortunately, German-Polish relations have not always remained fruitful in the later course of history and have, so to speak, turned into a kind of neighborly “hereditary enmity” in recent centuries. More on this later.
The annexation of the new Polish kingdom to the West, with the help of the papacy, to which the Polish kings repeatedly made themselves available, brought about a lively and extremely rich exchange in every respect between Poland and the Western peoples in the Middle Ages, especially with the southern German lands, but also with Burgundy and Flanders, with Italy and later with France and Austria and the Italian Renaissance states, whereby naturally Poland, as the younger state, the youngest of the older brothers of Christian Europe, was initially more of a taker than a giver.
Not only goods were exchanged between Kalisz and Kraköw, the Polish royal city of the Middle Ages, and between Bamberg, Speyer, Mainz, Prague, Paris, Cologne and Lyon and Clairvaux and Ghent. The Benedictines, the Cistercians and later the mendicant orders came from the West and were immediately given a boost in Poland, in the new Christian territory; then, in the Middle Ages, German Magdeburg law was added, which was of great service in the founding of Polish towns. German merchants, architects, artists and settlers also flocked to Poland, many of whom were absorbed into the Polish nation: Their German surnames were left to them. In Kraków’s large St. Mary’s Church we can still find the epitaphs of numerous German families from the Middle Ages, all of whom became Polish over time, from which Hitler and others – of unfortunate memory – drew the simple conclusion that Kraków and the whole of Poland were just a German settlement and should be treated accordingly. – The classic example of German-Polish cooperation in culture and art in the High Middle Ages is probably the world-famous sculptor Veit Stoß from Nuremberg (Wit Stwosz), who worked in Kraków for almost his entire life; his works there are all inspired by the genius loci of the Polish surroundings: He created his own school of artists in Kraków, which continued to have an effect for generations and fertilized the Polish countryside.
The Poles greatly honored their brothers from the Christian West, who came to them as messengers of true culture, and never concealed their non-Polish tribal origins. We truly owe a great deal to Western – including German – culture.
Apostles and saints also came to us from the West, and they are probably among the most valuable gifts that the Occident has given us. Their beneficial social work can still be felt in many places today. Among the best known are St. Bruno of Querfurt, known as the “Bishop of the Pagans”, who evangelized the Slavic and Lithuanian north-east in agreement with Bolesław Chrobry. Then, in particular, St. Hedwig (Jadwiga), Duchess of Silesia, born in Andechs, wife of the Polish Piast prince Henry the Bearded (Brodaty) of Silesia and founder of the Cistercian nunnery of Trzebnica (Trebnitz), where she is buried. In the 13th century she became the greatest benefactress of the Polish people in the then western territories of Piast Poland, in Silesia. It is historically quite certain that in order to serve the Polish common people, she even learned the Polish language. After her death and her early canonization, crowds of Polish and German people flocked to her tomb in Trzebnica – later called Trebnitz. And they still do so today in their thousands and thousands. Nobody reproaches our great national saint for being of German blood; on the contrary, apart from a few nationalist fanatics, she is generally regarded as the best expression of Christian bridge-building between Poland and Germany – and we are pleased to hear the same opinion quite often on the German side. Only holy people can build bridges between peoples, only those who have a pure opinion and clean hands. They do not want to take anything away from their brother nation, neither language, nor customs, nor land, nor material goods; on the contrary: they bring it highly valuable cultural goods, and they usually give it the most valuable thing they possess: themselves, and thus throw the seed of their own personality into the fertile soil of the new missionary neighboring country; this then bears a hundredfold fruit, according to the Savior’s word, and that for generations. This is how we see St. Hewig of Silesia in Poland, as well as all the other missionaries and martyrs who worked in Poland from the countries to the west, headed by the aforementioned martyr apostle Wojciech-Adalbert from Prague. This is probably the most profound difference between genuine Christian cultural mission and the so-called colonialism that is rightly frowned upon today.
After the year 1200, as the Polish country became more and more Christian in its people and institutions, its own Polish saints grew up.
As early as the 12th century, it was Bishop Stanislaus Szczepanowski of Kraków, confessor and martyr, who was slain at the altar by King Bolesław the Bold. (The king himself died as a saintly penitent in exile in a monastery in Upper Austria). At the tomb of St. Stanislaus in the royal cathedral church of Kraków, the majestic song in his honor was composed, today sung everywhere in Poland in Latin: “Gaude mater Polonia, prole foecunda nobili…”
Then the holy Polish triumvirate from the Odrowaz family (an ancient family that had its seat on the Oder in Upper Silesia for many centuries) appeared in the firmament. The greatest of them is St. Hyacinth – known as Jacek in Polish – a Dominican apostle who walked the length and breadth of Eastern Europe from Moravia to the Baltic, from Lithuania to Kiev. His relative, Blessed Czesław, also a Dominican, who defended the former city of Wrocław against the Mongols and is buried in today’s Wrocław in the newly built Wojciech (Adalbert) Church, is revered by the pious population as the patron saint of the city that was rebuilt from the ruins of 1945. And finally, Blessed Bronisława, according to tradition the sister of Blessed Czesław, a Norbertine from Silesia, rests in Kraköw.
The number of stars in the sky of saints grew: Blessed Kunigunde in Sącz, Bogumil and Blessed Jolanta in Gniezno, Władysław in Mazovia, and the saintly Queen Jadwiga, a new Polish Hedwig awaiting canonization, at the Royal Castle in Kraków. Later, new saints and martyrs were added: St. Stanislaus Kostka, Jesuit novice in Rome, St. John Kantius, professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, St. Andrew Bobola, martyr in eastern Poland, canonized in 1938, and other saints up to Franciscan Father Maximilian Kolbe, the martyr of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who gave his life voluntarily for his confreres. There are currently around 30 Polish candidates awaiting canonization and beatification in Rome. – Our nation honors its saints and regards them as the noblest fruit that a Christian country can produce.
The above-mentioned Polish university in Kraków was the first of its kind in the whole of Eastern Europe apart from Prague. Founded in 1363 by King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki), it was for centuries a center of not only political but also universal European cultural influence in all directions, in the best sense of the word. – In the 15th and 16th centuries, when the Silesian Piast lands were no longer part of the Polish kingdom, thousands of students and professors from Wratislavia (Breslau), Raciborz (Ratibor), Gliwice (Gleiwitz), Glogow (Glogau), Nyse (Neisse), Opole (Oppeln) and many other Silesian cities studied and lectured in Kraków. Their names and the names of their birthplaces are listed in this Polish-Latin idiom in the old university registers. Nicolaus Kopernik (Copernicus) is also mentioned by name. He studied astronomy in Kraków under Professor Martin Bylica. This university has produced hundreds of scholars of the highest scientific rank and given them to European culture: mathematicians, physicists, physicians, legal scholars, astronomers, historians and cultural philosophers. Among them was the famous Paulus Włodkowic, Rector of Krakow University, who at the Council of Constance taught frankly and freely, with the highest scholarly authority, a religious and humane tolerance unheard of at the time and with great personal courage took the position that the pagan peoples of Eastern Europe were not fair game that should and may be converted with fire and sword. They have natural human rights just like Christians…
Włodkowic was, so to speak, the classic expression of Polish tolerant and liberal thinking. His theses were directed against the German Knights of the Order, the so-called “Crusaders”, who at that time in the Slavic north and in the Prussian and Baltic countries converted the indigenous people there with fire and sword and over the centuries became a terrible and extremely compromising burden for European Christianity and its symbol, the cross, but also for the church in whose name they appeared. Even today, after many generations and centuries, the term “Krzyżak” (Crusader) is still a swearword and a spectre for every Pole and is unfortunately all too often identified with Germanness from time immemorial. – The Prussians, who brought all things German in Polish lands into general disrepute, later emerged from the settlement area of the “Crusaders”. They are represented in the historical development by the following names: Albrecht of Prussia, Frederick the Great, Bismarck and finally Hitler.
Frederick II has always been regarded by the entire Polish nation as the main author of the partition of Poland, and undoubtedly not without good reason. For a hundred and fifty years, the Polish nation of millions lived divided by the three great powers of the time: Prussia, Russia and Austria, until it was able to slowly emerge from its grave at the end of the First World War in 1918; weakened to the utmost, it then began a new independent existence again with great difficulty…
After a short period of independence of about 20 years (1918 to 1939), what is euphemistically referred to simply as the Second World War, but which for us Poles was intended as total annihilation and extermination, came upon the Polish people through no fault of their own. A terrible dark night fell over our poor fatherland, the likes of which we had not experienced for generations. It is generally referred to as the “German occupation” and has gone down in Polish history under this name. We were all powerless and defenceless. The country was littered with concentration camps where the chimneys of the crematoria smoked day and night. Over six million Polish citizens, the majority of them of Jewish origin, had to pay for this occupation with their lives. The leading Polish intelligentsia was simply swept away. Two thousand Polish priests and five bishops (a quarter of the episcopate at the time) were killed in camps. Hundreds of priests and tens of thousands of civilians were shot on the spot at the outbreak of the war (778 priests in the Kulm diocese alone). The diocese of Wloctawek alone lost 48 percent of its priests during the war, the diocese of Kulm 47 percent. Many others were resettled. All secondary and high schools were closed. The seminaries were closed. Every German uniform, not only the SS, became not only a spectre for all Poles, but also the object of German hatred. All Polish families had to mourn their deaths. We do not want to list everything so as not to reopen the wounds that have not yet healed. If we remember this terrible Polish night, it is only so that people today can understand us to some extent, ourselves and our current way of thinking… We try to forget. We hope that time – the great divine kairos – will slowly heal the spiritual wounds.
After all that has happened in the past – unfortunately only in the very recent past – it is not surprising that the entire Polish nation is under the heavy pressure of an elementary need for security and still views its closest neighbor in the West with suspicion. This mental attitude is, so to speak, our generational problem, which, God forbid, will and must disappear with good will. In the severe political and spiritual hardships of the nation, in its centuries of division, the Catholic Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary have always remained the lifeline and symbol of the national unity of the people, together with the Polish family. In all the struggles for freedom during the period of oppression, the Poles took to the barricades with these symbols, the white eagles on one side – Our Lady on the other side of the flag of freedom. The motto was always: “For your freedom and ours.”
This is a general outline of the thousand-year development of Polish cultural history with a special focus on the German-Polish neighborhood. The strain on mutual relations is still great and is exacerbated by the so-called “hot potato” of this neighborhood. The Polish western border on the Oder and Neisse rivers is, as we well understand, for Germany an extremely bitter fruit of the last war of mass extermination – together with the suffering of the millions of refugees and displaced Germans (by inter-allied order of the victorious powers – Potsdam 1945!). A large part of the population had left these areas out of fear of the Russian front and fled to the West. – For our fatherland, which did not emerge from the mass murder as a victorious state, but weakened to the extreme, it is a question of existence (not a question of “greater living space”!); unless one wanted to squeeze a population of over 30 million people into the narrow corridor of a “Generalgouvernement” from 1939 to 1945 – without western territories; but also without eastern territories, from which millions of Polish people had to stream over into the “Potsdam western territories” since 1945. Where were they supposed to go at that time, since the so-called Generalgouvernement, together with the capital Warsaw, lay in ruins? The waves of destruction of the last war have not only swept over the Polish lands once, as in Germany, but several times since 1914, back and forth like apocalyptic horsemen, and each time they have left behind rubble and ruins, poverty, disease, epidemics and tears and death and a growing complex of retaliation and hatred.
Dear German brothers,
don’t be sorry for this list of what has happened in the last part of our thousand years! It is not so much an accusation as a justification of our own! We know very well how very large parts of the German population were under superhuman National Socialist pressure of conscience for years, we know the terrible inner hardships to which righteous and responsible German bishops were exposed at the time, to mention only the names of Cardinal von Faulhaber, von Galen, von Preysing. We know about the martyrs of the White Rose, the resistance fighters of July 20th, we know that many laymen and priests sacrificed their lives (Lichtenberg, Metzger, Klausener and many others). Thousands of Germans shared the fate of our Polish brothers as Christians and communists in the concentration camps…
And despite all this, despite this almost hopelessly burdened situation with the past, it is precisely from this situation, dear brothers, that we call out to you: Let us try to forget! No polemics, no further cold war, but the beginning of a dialog, as it is sought everywhere today by the Council and by Pope Paul Vl.
If there is genuine good will on both sides – and that is not to be doubted – then a serious dialog must succeed and bear good fruit over time – despite everything, despite hot potatoes. – It seems to us, especially in the ecumenical council, to be the order of the day that we begin this dialog at the episcopal pastoral level, and without hesitation, that we get to know each other better, our mutual folk customs, the religious cult and lifestyle, rooted in the past and conditioned precisely by this cultural past.
We have tried to prepare for the millennium with the entire Polish people of God through the so-called Great Novena under the high patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For nine years (1957 to 1965), in the spirit of “per Mariam ad Jesum”, we dedicated the pulpit in Poland, as well as the entire pastoral care, to important modern pastoral care problems and social tasks: Youth pastoral care, social construction in justice and love, social dangers, national examination of conscience, marriage and family life, catechetical tasks and the like.
The whole faithful people also took a spiritually active part in the Ecumenical Council through prayer, sacrifices and works of penance. During the Council sessions, petitionary prayers were held in all parishes, and the holy image of Our Lady as well as the confessionals and communion benches in Częstochowa were besieged for weeks by parish delegations from all over Poland who wanted to help through personal sacrifice and prayer.
Finally, in this year, the last of the great novena, we all consecrated ourselves to the Mother of God, bishops, priests, religious and all classes of our faithful people. Only the help and grace of our Savior can save us from the immense moral and social dangers that threaten the soul of our people, but also its biological existence, which we want to implore through the mediation of his Mother, the Blessed Virgin. Full of childlike trust, we throw ourselves into her arms. Only in this way can we become inwardly free as servant and at the same time free children – even as “slaves of God”, as St. Paul calls them.
We ask you, Catholic shepherds of the German people, to try in your own way to help celebrate our Christian millennium, be it through prayer or through a special day of remembrance. We will be grateful for every gesture of this kind. We also ask you to convey our greetings and thanks to our German Protestant brethren who are struggling with us and with you to find solutions to our difficulties.
In this most Christian and at the same time very human spirit, we extend our hands to you in the benches of the Council that is drawing to a close, granting forgiveness and asking for forgiveness. And when you, German bishops and Council Fathers, fraternally grasp our outstretched hands, only then will we be able to celebrate our millennium in Poland with a clear conscience in a completely Christian manner. We cordially invite you to Poland.
May the merciful Redeemer and the Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland, Regina Mundi and Mater Ecclesiae.
Rome, November 18, 1965
The signatories of the Polish letter:
Stefan Cardinalis Wyszyliski, Primas Poloniae Antonius Baraniak, Archiepiscopus Posnaniensis Bolesiaw Kominek, Archiepp. Tit. in Wrociaw Carolus Wojtyla, Archiepiscopus Metropolita Cracoviensis Antono Pawlowski, Episcopus Vladislaviensis Casimirus Joseph Kowalski, Episcopus Culmensis Michael Klepacz, Episcopus Lodzensis, Ord. Czestaw Falkowski, Episcopus Lomzensis Petrus Kalwa, Episcopus Lublinensis Franciscus Jop, Episcopus in Opole Herbertus Bednorz, Episcopus Coadiutor Katovicensis Stefan Barela, Episcopus Czestochoviensis Bogdan Sikorski, Episcopus Plocensis Edmund Nowicki, Episcopus Gedanensis Joannes Jaroszewicz, Admin. Apost. Kielcensis Jerzy Ablewicz, Episcopus Tarnovlensis Joseph Drzazga, Episcopus Vic. co. p. Olsztyn Stanistaw Jakiel, Vic. Cap. Przemygl Andrzej Wronka, Episcopus Auxil. in Wroclaw Venceslaus Majewski, Episcopus Auxil. Varsaviensis Georgius Stroba, Episcopus Auxil. in Gorzöw Franciscus Jedwabski, Episcopus Auxil. in Pozriafi Julianus Groblicki, Episcopus Auxil. Cracoviensis Carolus Pgkala, Episcopus Auxil. in Tarnöw Zygfryd Kowalski, Episcopus Auxil. Culmensis Georgius Modzelewski, Episcopus Auxil. Varsaviensis Jan Wosifiski, Episcopus Auxil. Plocensis Bogdan Bejze, Episcopus Auxil. Lodzensis Thaddaeus Szyagrzyk, Episcopus Auxil. Czestochoviensis Venceslaus Skomorucha, Episcopus Auxil. in Siedlce Jan Zargba, Episcopus Auxil. Vladislaviensis Henricus Grzondziel, Episcopus Auxil. in Opole Joseph Kurpas, Episcopus Auxil. Katovicensis Ladislaus Rubin, Episcopus Auxil. Gnesnensis Paulus Latusek, Episcopus Auxil. in Wroclaw Joannes Czerniak, Episcopus Auxil. in Gnienzno
The reply of the German bishops to the Polish bishops of December 5, 1965
Most reverend brothers in the episcopate!
It was with emotion and joy that we received your message of 18 November this year and your kind invitation to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the Christianization of the Polish people. We regard it as a precious fruit of our common Council work that you were able to address this word to us. We gratefully accept it and hope to be able to continue the dialog we have begun in Poland and Germany. With God’s help, this conversation will promote and strengthen the fraternity between the Polish and German peoples.
We are aware of how difficult it was and still is for many Christians in Europe, after the horrors of the Second World War, to hold on wholeheartedly to the fundamental truth of our faith that we are children of the heavenly Father and brothers in Christ. This Christian brotherhood found its longed-for expression at the Cologne Cathedral Jubilee in 1948 with the visit of French and English cardinals and bishops. May the millennium of Poland’s baptism also be such a sign in the coming year.
In your letter, venerable brothers, you reminded us of the many ties that have bound the Polish people to Christian Europe for centuries and the role they have played – and, we hope, will continue to play – in the history of this Christian Europe. You had the generosity to mention first and foremost examples from all these centuries that are a credit to both your people and ours, examples of joint work, sincere respect, fruitful exchange and mutual support, although all of this could have taken a back seat to the injustice and suffering that the Polish people have had to bear throughout history. It is a comforting reminder of the future we hope for and must strive for by all means when you remind us of how the Polish Church in the Middle Ages was involved in manifold exchanges with German towns, parishes and religious orders across all borders. It touches us deeply that we are united in the veneration of St. Hedwig, who was of German blood and yet – as you write – the greatest benefactress of the Polish people in the 13th century. We undoubtedly owe these bright sides of Polish-German relations in history to our common Christian faith. We are therefore convinced and agree with you, venerable brothers, that if we want to be brothers of Christ beyond all differences, if we bishops, as became clear at this Council, want to be first and foremost the college of pastors who serve the one people of God, and if we also lead our particular churches in this way, then the shadows that unfortunately still lie over our two peoples must recede.
Terrible things have been done to the Polish people by Germans and in the name of the German people. We know that we must bear the consequences of the war, which are also difficult for our country. We understand that the period of German occupation has left a burning wound which is difficult to heal, even with the best will in the world. We are all the more grateful that, in view of this fact, you recognize with true Christian magnanimity how a large part of the German population was also under heavy pressure of conscience during the National Socialist era. We are grateful that, in view of the millions of Polish victims of that time, you also remember the Germans who resisted the evil spirit and in some cases gave their lives. It is a consolation to us that many of our priests and faithful prayed and sacrificed for the disenfranchised Polish people on that night of hatred and took prison and death upon themselves for this Christian love. We are grateful that, in addition to the immeasurable suffering of the Polish people, you also remember the hard lot of the millions of displaced Germans and refugees.
Of course, we agree that we cannot help ourselves by offsetting guilt and injustice. We are children of our common heavenly Father. All human injustice is first of all a guilt before God, and forgiveness must first be requested from him. The Lord’s Prayer is addressed to him first: “Forgive us our trespasses!” Then we can also ask for forgiveness from our neighbors with an honest heart. So we also ask to forget, indeed we ask to forgive. Forgetting is a human thing. The request for forgiveness is a call to everyone who has been wronged to see this injustice with the merciful eyes of God and to allow a new beginning.
This beginning is particularly burdened by the bitter consequences of the war started and lost by Germany. Millions of Poles had to move from the East to the territories assigned to them. We are well aware of what these territories mean for Poland today. But millions of Germans also had to leave their homeland, where their fathers and ancestors lived. They had not moved into the country as conquerors, but had been called by the local princes over the centuries. That is why we must tell you in love and truthfulness: when these Germans speak of the “right to a homeland”, there is – with a few exceptions – no aggressive intention. Our Silesians, Pomeranians and East Prussians want to say that they have rightfully lived in their old homeland and that they remain attached to it. They are aware that a young generation is now growing up there who also regard the land that was assigned to their fathers as their homeland. Christian love tries to empathize with the concerns and needs of others and thus to overcome tensions and borders. It seeks to eradicate the spirit of hatred, enmity and revanchism. In this way, it will contribute to overcoming all the unfortunate consequences of the war in a solution that is satisfactory and just for all sides. You may be convinced that no German bishop wants and will ever promote anything other than the fraternal relationship between the two peoples in full sincerity and honest dialog.
The experience of the Council can give us courage for such brotherhood of good will. Even at the Council, the paths were not always clear. The goal was not always clear and obvious, and the Fathers often hesitated at crossroads, but then, by God’s grace, a way was shown to us and sometimes a surprising solution was given. So we hope with you that God will also show our two peoples solutions in the future if we give him proof of our good will. As a sign of our good will, venerable brothers, and in sincere gratitude for your invitation, we want to come as pilgrims to your Marian shrine in Czestochowa and share in your joy and that of all your people. We want to pray with you at the shrines where the Polish people often and especially in these times seek strength and blessing from God. We promise to ask our faithful to unite themselves with our and your prayers in the coming Marian month.
We want to do everything we can to ensure that this connection is never broken. In 1968, the German Catholic Congress will take place in Essen. In the same year, the diocese of Meissen will celebrate the thousandth anniversary of its foundation. It would be a great pleasure for us and our faithful to be able to welcome Polish bishops on these occasions. In our invitations we share with you the wish that the meeting of the bishops and the dialog that has begun may continue in all areas of life of our two peoples. We warmly welcome all steps that can serve this goal. It is therefore with pleasure that we fulfill your request to convey your special greetings to our Protestant brothers in Germany. Furthermore, in our efforts to achieve mutual understanding, we can know that we are united with all people of good will.
Most reverend brothers! The Council has brought us together in a holy place to work and pray together. The grottoes of St. Peter’s contain the small chapel of Our Lady of Częstochowa. There we also found the image of St. Hedwig, whom your people particularly venerate and whom you regard “as the best expression of a Christian bridge-builder between Poland and Germany”.
We want to learn from this great saint to treat each other with reverence and love. At the end of your letter are the precious words that can open up a new future for our two peoples: “We stretch out our hands to you in the benches of the closing Council, grant forgiveness and ask for forgiveness.” With fraternal reverence, we grasp the offered hands. May the God of peace grant us, through the intercession of the “regina pacis”, that never again may the evil spirit of hatred part our hands!
Rome, December 5, 1965
The names of the German signatories:
Jos. Card. Frings, Archbishop of Cologne Julius Card. Döpfner, Archbishop of Munich and Freising Lorenz Card. Jaeger, Archbishop of Paderborn Josef Schneider, Archbishop of Bamberg Hermann Schäufele, Archbishop of Freiburg Alfred Bengsch, Archbishop, Bishop of Berlin Joseph Schröffer, Bishop of Eichstätt Franz Hengsbach, Bishop of Essen Adolf Bolte, Bishop of Fulda Hermann Volk, Bishop of Mainz Rudolf Graber, Bishop of Regensburg Isidor Marcus Emanuel, Bishop of Speyer Carl Jos. Leiprecht, Bishop of Rottenburg Josef Stangl, Bishop of Würzburg Wilhelm Kempf, Bishop of Limburg Matthias Wehr, Bishop of Trier Josef Stimpfle, Bishop of Augsburg Heinrich Maria Janssen, Bishop of Hildesheim Helmut Hermann Wittler, Bishop of Osnabrück Johannes Pohlschneider, Bishop of Aachen Otto Spülbeck, Bishop of Meissen > Joseph Höffner, Bishop of Münster Gerhard Schaffran, Bishop and Chapter Vicar in Görlitz Heinrich Pachowiak, Auxiliary Bishop in Hildesheim Walter Kampe, Auxiliary Bishop in Limburg Johannes v. RudIoff, Auxiliary Bishop in Hamburg Augustinus Frotz, Auxiliary Bishop in Cologne Eduard Schick, Auxiliary Bishop in Fulda Hugo Aufderbeck, Auxiliary Bishop in Erfurt Joseph Buchkremer, Auxiliary Bishop in Aachen Heinrich Tenhumberg, Auxiliary Bishop in Münster i.W. Alfons Kempf, Auxiliary Bishop in Würzburg Julius Angerhausen, Auxiliary Bishop in Essen Karl Gnädinger, Auxiliary Bishop in Freiburg Joseph Zimmermann, Auxiliary Bishop in Augsburg Carl Schmidt, Auxiliary Bishop in Trier FriedrichRintelen, Auxiliary Bishop in Magdeburg >r Josephus Hiltl, Auxiliary Bishop in Regensburg Wilhelm Cleven, Auxiliary Bishop in Cologne Bernardus Stein, Auxiliary Bishop in Trier Bernhard Schräder, Auxiliary Bishop in Schwerin K Josef Maria Reuss, Auxiliary Bishop in Mainz
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