Holocaust Memory and the Cold War: Remembering Across the Iron Curtain, edited by Anna Koch and Steven Stach. 2024. De Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Exculpatory German Anti-Polish Films: German Guilt Diversion
For the longest time, Germans have attempted to shift the blame for the Holocaust away from themselves and unto other nations, notably Poland. They often rationalize their actions through the self-serving claim that they had firmly repented from Nazism. This is a double lie. Any valid German repentance for Nazism does not establish some sort of German right to blame other nations for German crimes. More fundamentally, the fact that Germany has paid the Jews but refuses to compensate Poland itself soundly demolishes any German claim of genuine repentance. Actions speak louder than words.
One of the German anti-Polish films is GENERATION WAR (UNSERE MÜTTER, UNSERE VÄTER). See:
To put this German evasion of responsibility at the expense of the Poles in proper perspective, see:
GERMAN ANTI-POLISH FILMS. INVERTING HISTORY: “BAD” POLES AND “GOOD” GERMANS
In the present book, author Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska analyzes the German TV series, AM GRÜNEN STRAND DER SPREE [On the Green Beach of the Spree River]. She writes, “In both versions of AM GRÜNEN STRAND DER SPREE, the story starts in the Polish town of Maciejowice in in June 1941…In AM GRÜNEN STRAND DER SPREE, however, Jews seem to be persecuted by their Polish neighbors rather than by the German occupiers. Wilms, in turn, sympathizes with both ethnic groups and is consequently presented as a ‘good German’. At first, he helps a Jewish child who escapes a group of Polish men…” (p. 268).
THE JEWS’ HOLOCAUST: THE GERMAN BLAME-SHIFTING GAME YET AGAIN
Saryusz-Wolska writes, “The television version of AM GRÜNEN STRAND DER SPREE thus presents the Holocaust as an international crime committed on Soviet soil, with Soviet support.” (p. 270). The Germans have practically disappeared.
But wait. It gets even better. She continues, “Among the motifs that shifted the responsibility for the atrocities onto non-Germans are also the anti-Semitic children whom Wilms meets on his way to the shooting site….Their presence may be just another hint that the local population supported the persecution of the Jews…the presence of the anti-Semitic children in the West German media complex appears as a means of blurring the primary German responsibility for the Holocaust. This is especially problematic because the children are usually associated with innocence…In the miniseries they [the film-makers] repeat the anti-Semitic slogan in a language that resembles Polish rather than Russian or Belarussian.” (p. 272). Yes. Everything must be the Poles’ fault.
Saryush-Wolska concludes, “It provides evidence, however, of West German efforts to kill two birds with one stone: to introduce the issue of the mass murder of the European Jews in the public sphere and at the same time to blur the German responsibility at its core.” (p. 273). Exactly right. And the fact that Germany refuses to pay reparations to the Poles makes for an aggravating circumstance in this blurring of German responsibility. In fact, the Germans have been doing this blame-shifting for many decades. See:
https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2026/05/16/bombshell-german-jewish-anti-polishness-confirmed/
“POLNISCHE WIRTSCHAFT” REVISITED: REINFORCING GERMAN PREJUDICES AGAINST POLES
The author also identifies subtle forms of anti-Polish messaging. She writes, “…the miniseries contributes rather to the stereotype of East Central Europe as backward and underdeveloped. When compared to the book and the radio play, the film stands out in its portrayal of an increasingly wild and primitive East.” (p. 269). Evidently, the Germans have never come to grips with the reality of Polish civilization.
