Kniefall von Warschau (German for 'Warsaw Genuflection') is a 1970 incident involving which European statesman who paid homage to WWII's Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during his visit to the city?
"Kniefall von Warschau The term Kniefall von Warschau, also referred to as Warschauer Kniefall, (both German for ""Warsaw genuflection"") refers to a gesture of humility and penance by German Chancellor Willy Brandt towards the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The event took place on December 7, 1970, in Warsaw, Poland (which was then part of the Eastern Bloc), during a visit to a monument to the German occupation-era Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After laying down a wreath, Brandt, very surprisingly, and to all appearances spontaneously, knelt. He remained silently in that position for a short time (half a minute), surrounded"
"monument was Piotr Drachal. Willy Brandt Monument (Warsaw) The Willy Brandt Monument in Warsaw is a monument located in Willy Brandt Square, Warsaw, Poland, near the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. It commemorates German chancellor Willy Brandt and the Warschauer Kniefall (1970). It was unveiled on 6 December 2000, the day before 30th anniversary of the event, by Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schröder and Prime Minister of Poland Jerzy Buzek in the presence of Brigitte Seebacher-Brandt and Günter Grass. The author of the bronze plaque depicting a kneeling Willy Brandt was Wiktoria Czechowska-Antoniewska, and the author of the"
"Willy Brandt Monument (Warsaw) The Willy Brandt Monument in Warsaw is a monument located in Willy Brandt Square, Warsaw, Poland, near the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. It commemorates German chancellor Willy Brandt and the Warschauer Kniefall (1970). It was unveiled on 6 December 2000, the day before 30th anniversary of the event, by Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schröder and Prime Minister of Poland Jerzy Buzek in the presence of Brigitte Seebacher-Brandt and Günter Grass. The author of the bronze plaque depicting a kneeling Willy Brandt was Wiktoria Czechowska-Antoniewska, and the author of the architectural design of the"
"long term, to the dismantlement of the Warsaw Treaty and the Soviet Union's control over East-Central Europe. During a visit to Warsaw on 7 December 1970, Brandt made the Warschauer Kniefall by kneeling before a monument to those killed in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a gesture of humility and penance that no German Chancellor had made until that time. Chancellor Brandt was forced to resign in May 1974, after Günter Guillaume, a senior member of his staff, was uncovered as a spy for the East German intelligence service, the Stasi. Brandt's contributions to world peace led to his winning the"
"notable guests included the U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Herzog, on behalf of Germany, was the first German statesman to apologize for German atrocities committed against the Polish nation during the Uprising. During the 60th anniversary of the Uprising in 2004, official delegations included: German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, UK deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and US Secretary of State Colin Powell; Pope John Paul II sent a letter to the mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczyński on this occasion. Russia once again did not send a representative. A day before, 31 July 2004, the Warsaw Uprising Museum opened in Warsaw. Numerous"
"from the Warsaw Pact in opposition, calling the invasion an act of ""social imperialism"". In Finland, a country under some Soviet political influence, the occupation caused a major scandal. Like the Italian and French Communist parties, the majority of the Communist Party of Finland denounced the occupation. Nonetheless, Finnish president Urho Kekkonen was the very first Western politician to officially visit Czechoslovakia after August 1968; he received the highest Czechoslovakian honours from the hands of President Ludvík Svoboda, on 4 October 1969. The Portuguese communist secretary-general Álvaro Cunhal was one of few political leaders from western Europe to have supported"
"by a head of state, but not the first by a West German leader, as Chancellor Willy Brandt had paid a visit to Israel in June 1973. During a four-day state visit to the United Kingdom in July 1986, Weizsäcker addressed a joint session of the Houses of Parliament, the first German to be accorded that honor. In 1987, he travelled to Moscow to meet Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in what was perceived as a difficult time in West German-Soviet relations, after chancellor Kohl had angered Moscow by comparing Gorbachev to Joseph Goebbels. During a speech at the Kremlin, Weizsäcker"
"attended by high-ranking Polish politicians such as Prime Minister Donald Tusk (2014), President Bronisław Komorowski (2015), President Andrzej Duda (2016), and Prime Minister Beata Szydło (2017). The commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, in 2009, was attended by Prime Minister Tusk, former Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and former Presidents Lech Wałęsa and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, as well as by important figures from about 20 other countries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and French Prime Minister François Fillon. The Battle of Westerplatte has been the subject"
"popularity. Henryk Iwański Henryk Iwański (1902-1978), nom de guerre Bystry, was a member of the Polish resistance during World War II. He is known for leading one of the most daring actions of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) in support of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. For his assistance to the Polish Jews Iwański was bestowed the title of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in 1964. Before the Second World War Henryk had reached the rank of captain in the Polish Army. Soon after Nazi Germany invaded Poland and began the Holocaust, Henryk was instrumental in"
"Treaty of Warsaw (1970) The Treaty of Warsaw (, Polish: Układ PRL-RFN) was a treaty between West Germany and the People's Republic of Poland. It was signed by Chancellor Willy Brandt and Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz at the Presidential Palace on 7 December 1970, and it was ratified by the German Bundestag on 17 May 1972. In the treaty, both sides committed themselves to nonviolence and accepted the existing border—the Oder-Neisse line, imposed on Germany by the Allied powers at the 1945 Potsdam Conference following the end of World War II. This had been a quite sensitive topic since then,"
"one of the very worst forms of anti-Semitism and Holocaust obfuscation. We demand an immediate retraction and apology from the Polish government of these absurd and offensive remarks."". On 19 April 2018, Ronald Lauder together with international guests took part in official 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland. Lauder made a long speech near the front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw and said: We are standing here in a modern day Masada. Here in this former Warsaw Ghetto area the current ground is about 120 cm above prewar ground, above"
"President of the European Parliament, serving from 1979 to 1982. Two Auschwitz victims—Maximilian Kolbe, a priest who volunteered to die by starvation in place of a stranger, and Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism—were later named saints of the Catholic Church. On 2 July 1947, the Polish government passed a law, establishing a state memorial to the victims of Nazism on the site of the camp. In 1955, an exhibition opened, displaying prisoner mug shots; hair, suitcases, and shoes taken from murdered prisoners; canisters of Zyklon B pellets; and other objects related to the killings. UNESCO added the camp"
"Bonn back to Berlin in the mid-1990s, the new headquarters was named the ""Willy Brandt Haus"". One of the buildings of the European Parliament in Brussels was named after him in 2008. On 6 December 2000, a memorial to Willy Brandt and ""Warschauer Kniefall"" was unveiled in Warsaw, Poland. German artist Johannes Heisig painted several portraits of Brandt of which one was unveiled as part of an honoring event at German Historical Institute Washington, DC on 18 March 2003. Spokesmen amongst others were former German Federal Minister Egon Bahr and former U.S. Secretary of state Henry Kissinger. In 2009, the"
"The hotel became a favorite spot for meetings and the accommodation of diplomats and aristocrats, who would celebrate winter and ‘green’ carnivals there. The hotel was used by the German military during World War II, when it was renamed Hotel Der Reichshof and accommodated German officers. It served as a hospital and supply base during the Warsaw Uprising and miraculously survived the almost complete destruction of the city of Warsaw. The hotel re-opened on April 13, 1945. General Dwight David Eisenhower stayed at the hotel in 1945 for a victory banquet, greeted by huge crowds of cheering Varsovians. General Charles"
"oncoming van on the opposite lane, probably due to Geremek falling asleep behind the wheel. He was granted a state funeral, held in Warsaw in the Cathedral of St John. His funeral was attended, among others, by president Lech Kaczyński, prime minister Donald Tusk, and three former presidents Ryszard Kaczorowski, Lech Wałęsa and Aleksander Kwaśniewski. In January 2009, the European Parliament named the main courtyard of the ""Louise Weiss"", its principal building, after Bronisław Geremek. Bronisław Geremek Professor Bronisław Geremek (born Benjamin Lewertow; 6 March 1932 – 13 July 2008) was a Polish social historian and politician. Geremek was born"
"a fly-over of Auschwitz-Birkenau during a ceremony at the camp below. The flight was led by Major-General Amir Eshel, the son of Holocaust survivors. On 27 January 2015, some 300 Auschwitz survivors and other guests gathered under a giant tent at the entrance to Auschwitz II Birkenau to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation. Attendees included president of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder, film director Steven Spielberg, and world leaders such as Polish president Bronisław Komorowski and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. As the number of remaining survivors decreases each year, the attendance at the event is"
"Heinz Reinefarth Heinz Reinefarth, 26 December 1903 – 7 May 1979) was a German SS commander during World War II and government official in West Germany after the war. During the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944 his troops committed numerous atrocities. After the war Reinefarth became the mayor of the town of Westerland and member of the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag. Despite Polish demands for extradition, he was never convicted of any war crimes. Reinefarth was born in Gnesen (Gniezno), Province of Posen. After finishing the gymnasium in 1922, he joined the law faculty of the University of Jena. He graduated in"
"and Małgorzata (b. 1983). In December 1986, he settled in Bissendorf, Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany, where he lives to this day. Władysław Kozakiewicz Władysław Kozakiewicz (born 8 December 1953) is a retired Polish athlete who specialised in the pole vault. He is best known for winning the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the bras d'honneur gesture which he showed to the hostile Soviet crowd. In Poland, where the gesture was viewed as a symbol of resistance against Soviet dominance, it became known as ""Kozakiewicz's gesture"" (""gest Kozakiewicza""). In addition, he won several medals at continental"
"reinforce the common understanding of threats, respond to Russia’s destabilizing activity, expand economic opportunity on the energy market, and address the environmental issue. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the PiS political party foresaw Mr. Trump’s visit to be a “new success” for the country. Trump was also expecting a warmer welcome in Warsaw, Poland due to the Poles’ supports of his presidency. The event took place at Warsaw Uprising Monument at Krasinski Square, in Warsaw. The Warsaw Uprising Monument was dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Donald Trump was planned to stop in Poland before the G20 summit in"
"form and location of the monument further delayed the project. Poland's communist government finally gave permission to construct the monument on 12 April 1988. It was unveiled on 1 August 1989, the 45th anniversary of the Uprising. The monument was designed by sculptor Wincenty Kućma and architect Jacek Budyn. The monument was visited by German president Roman Herzog on 1994, who paid tribute to the Poles and gave a speech about German shame in context of Nazi Germany's crimes during the Second World War in Poland. Herzog apologized to the Poles during his speech about war crimes. The monument is"
"Janek Wiśniewski Janek Wiśniewski is a fictional name given to a real person, Zbigniew Godlewski, shot dead by security forces during the Polish 1970 protests in the city of Gdynia. It has been popularized across the country in the poem ""Ballad of Janek Wiśniewski"". On December 17, 1970, during Poland's demonstrations against the Communist regime, the army fired into the crowd of workers emerging from a commuter train in Gdynia, under the pretext of preventing an industrial sabotage action. At least 40 innocent people were killed by police . The image of an anonymous young man's body carried on a"
"arms reduction treaties. Gorbachev toured the Reagan Museum on campus, met with students, and spoke at a convocation in the Reagan Center; he then traveled to the nearby Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois, as the keynote speaker at the combined George Washington/Ronald Reagan Day Dinner where college president J. David Arnold named him an Honorary Reagan Fellow of Eureka College. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gorbachev accompanied former Polish leader Lech Wałęsa and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a celebration in Berlin on 9 November 2009. On 7 June 2010, Gorbachev gave"
"He was the patron of the 50 Regiment of Kresy Riflemen (""50 Pułk Piechoty Strzelców Kresowych""). Even during the Cold War years, a consul went to Bergamo to pay him homage at the foot of the monument dedicated to him in his hometown. In 1963, on the battle's 100th anniversary, an Italian delegation visited the cemetery, adding another plaque and several trees. Nine streets and three schools in Poland bear his name. He is also commemorated in several poems. There is also a monument in Warsaw (on a street bearing his name), the monument was unveiled on 26 February 1939"
"Henryk Iwański Henryk Iwański (1902-1978), nom de guerre Bystry, was a member of the Polish resistance during World War II. He is known for leading one of the most daring actions of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) in support of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. For his assistance to the Polish Jews Iwański was bestowed the title of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in 1964. Before the Second World War Henryk had reached the rank of captain in the Polish Army. Soon after Nazi Germany invaded Poland and began the Holocaust, Henryk was instrumental in the"
"Jürgen Stroop Jürgen Stroop (born Josef Stroop, 26 September 1895 – 6 March 1952) was a German SS commander during the Nazi era, who served as SS and Police Leader in occupied Poland. He led the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and wrote the Stroop Report, a book-length account of the operation. Following the defeat of Germany, Stroop was prosecuted during the Dachau Trials and convicted of murdering nine American POWs. After his extradition to the People's Republic of Poland, Stroop was tried, convicted, and executed for crimes against humanity. Jürgen Stroop was born in the Principality"
"incident was evoked by Pope John Paul II in his return to Poland when he gave the speech to more than a million Polish people that shook the position of the atheistic communists in Poland. The event created a series of solidarity movement until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. While communism no longer poses a threat to western civilization, another radical ideology is still threatening the western harmony, Trump said. Referring to the terrorist attacks on the United States and Europe, he declared the resolution to stop the spread of terrorism and extremism under the threat of"
"Kwaśniewski, as well as future Prime Minister Leszek Miller. Both Kwaśniewski and Miller were members of the Democratic Left Alliance, the social democratic party that includes most of the remains of the PUWP. In May 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded a medal commemorating the 60th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany to Jaruzelski. Other former leaders awarded the medal include former Romanian King Michael I. Czech President Václav Klaus criticized this step, claiming that Jaruzelski was a symbol of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Jaruzelski said that he had apologized and that the decision on the"
"z Gdyni"". The song was covered by Kazik Staszewski and used in the movie trailer. Janek Wiśniewski Janek Wiśniewski is a fictional name given to a real person, Zbigniew Godlewski, shot dead by security forces during the Polish 1970 protests in the city of Gdynia. It has been popularized across the country in the poem ""Ballad of Janek Wiśniewski"". On December 17, 1970, during Poland's demonstrations against the Communist regime, the army fired into the crowd of workers emerging from a commuter train in Gdynia, under the pretext of preventing an industrial sabotage action. At least 40 innocent people were"
"Władysław Kozakiewicz Władysław Kozakiewicz (born 8 December 1953) is a retired Polish athlete who specialised in the pole vault. He is best known for winning the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the bras d'honneur gesture which he showed to the hostile Soviet crowd. In Poland, where the gesture was viewed as a symbol of resistance against Soviet dominance, it became known as ""Kozakiewicz's gesture"" (""gest Kozakiewicza""). In addition, he won several medals at continental level, won two Summer Universiades and broke the pole vault world record three times. He is also a ten times Polish"
"The funeral was attended by an array of leading European political figures, including French President François Mitterrand, Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Weizsäcker stretched the traditionally ceremonial position of Germany’s president to reach across political, national, and age boundaries to address a wide range of controversial issues. He is credited with being largely responsible for taking the lead on an asylum policy overhaul after the arson attack by neo-Nazis in Mölln, in which three Turkish citizens died in 1993. He also earned recognition at home and abroad for attending memorial services for the victims"
"He gave a longer speech at the act of state at the Berliner Philharmonie later that day. In 1990, Weizsäcker became the first head of state of the German Federal Republic to visit Poland. During his four-day visit, he reassured Poles that the newly unified German state would treat their western and northern borders, which included prewar German lands, as inviolable. In 1992, Weizsäcker gave the eulogy at the state funeral of former Chancellor Willy Brandt at the ""Reichstag"", the first state funeral for a former chancellor to take place in Berlin since the death of Gustav Stresemann in 1929."
"him as a leader. He was honored with a state funeral on 11 February 2015 at Berlin Cathedral. Eulogies were given by incumbent president Joachim Gauck, foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) and former vice president of the Bundestag Antje Vollmer (Green Party). Steinmeier praised Weizsäcker's role in foreign relations, where he had worked towards reconciliation with France and Poland and supported a dialogue with the communist regimes in the East, often against his own party. The funeral was attended by many serving high-ranking politicians in Germany, including chancellor Angela Merkel. Also in attendance were former"
"Monument to the Ghetto Heroes The Ghetto Heroes Monument () is a monument in Warsaw, Poland, commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 during the Second World War. It is located in the area which was formerly a part of the Warsaw Ghetto, at the spot where the first armed clash of the uprising took place. The monument was built partly of Nazi German materials originally brought to Warsaw in 1942 by Albert Speer for his planned works. The completed monument was formally unveiled in April 1948. The monument was raised in the square bordered by Anielewicza Street, Karmelicka Street,"