\n German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday asked Poland's forgiveness for history's bloodiest conflict during a ceremony in the Polish city of Wielun, where the first World War II bombs fell 80 years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I bow my head before the victims of the attack on Wielun. I bow my head before the Polish victims of Germany's tyranny. And I ask forgiveness,\" Steinmeier said in both German and Polish.\n<\/p>\n
\n Poland suffered some of the worst horrors of World War II: nearly six million Poles died in the conflict that killed more than 50 million people overall.\n<\/p>\n
\n That figure includes the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, half of them Polish.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It is the Germans who committed a crime against humanity in Poland. Anyone who claims it is over, that the national-socialists' reign of terror over Europe is a marginal event in German history judges that for himself,\" Steinmeier added in the presence of his Polish counterpart.\n<\/p>\n
\n The line appeared to be a clear reference to the German far-right, whose co-leader Alexander Gauland once called the 12-year Third Reich a \"speck of bird poop\" in an otherwise glorious German past.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We will never forget. We want to remember and we will remember,\" Steinmeier said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Polish President Andrzej Duda for his part denounced Nazi Germany's attack on Poland, calling it \"an act of barbarity\" and \"a war crime.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I am convinced that this ceremony will go down in the history of Polish-German friendship,\" he added, thanking Steinmeier for his presence.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Smoke, noise, explosions' -\n<\/p>\n
\n The heads of state will later tour the Wielun museum and meet with local survivors of the September 1, 1939 bombing.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I saw dead bodies, the wounded... Smoke, noise, explosions. Everything was burning,\" Wielun bombing survivor Tadeusz Sierandt, 88, told AFP ahead of the anniversary.\n<\/p>\n
\n The carpet-bombing came one week after Germany and the Soviet Union secretly agreed to carve up Eastern Europe between them by signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.\n<\/p>\n
\n Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans attended a separate dawn remembrance Sunday in Westerplatte, where a Nazi German battleship opened fire on a Polish fort on September 1, 1939.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hitler's attacks on Poland led Britain and France to declare war on Nazi Germany. On September 17, the Soviet Union in turn invaded Poland.\n<\/p>\n
\n After the Nazis tore up the pact with Moscow, two alliances battled it out to the end: the Axis powers led by Germany, Italy and Japan and the victorious Allied forces led by Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States.\n<\/p>\n
\n Later Sunday, US Vice President Mike Pence, Steinmeier and Duda will deliver speeches at a ceremony in Warsaw's Pilsudski Square, the site of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.\n<\/p>\n
\n - No Johnson, Putin, Trump -\n<\/p>\n
\n Though it has been 80 years since the war started, there are still unresolved matters according to Poland, which says Germany owes it war reparations.\n<\/p>\n
\n A parliamentary commission is currently working on a new analysis of the extent of Poland's wartime human and material losses. Berlin, however, believes the case is closed.\n<\/p>\n
\n German Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend the Warsaw ceremony, but no other major world leaders are expected.\n<\/p>\n
\n US President Donald Trump had planned to attend the war commemorations but cancelled at the last minute so that he could monitor Hurricane Dorian.\n<\/p>\n
\n Also not attending are French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, while Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited -- unlike 10 years ago -- because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Polish presidency had said the commemorations would be attended by around 40 foreign delegations, a few of them led by heads of state.\n<\/p>\n
\n They include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky whose partnership matters to Poland, which believes its security depends on Ukraine remaining outside of Russia's sphere of influence.\n<\/p>\n
\n Duda said Poland wants neighbour \"Ukraine to be closer to the European Union, to be closer to NATO\" after meeting with Zelensky in Warsaw on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday asked Poland's forgiveness for history's bloodiest conflict during a ceremony in the Polish city of Wielun, where the first World War II bombs fell 80 years ago. \"I bow my head before the victims of the attack on Wielun. I bow my head before the Polish victims of Germany's […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-42271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n