Frank-Walter Steinmeier made the statement at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in the Polish capital on Wednesday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The German head of state joined Polish President Andrzej Duda and Israeli President Isaac Herzog to commemorate 80 years since the Jewish insurgents rose against the Nazi German occupiers.
The Monument to the Ghetto Heroes stands at the site of several of the uprising’s armed clashes, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported.
‘I ask for forgiveness for the crimes that Germans committed here’
Steinmeier told the gathering that Germans had meticulously planned and carried out the crime against humanity that was the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah.
He said: “Germans persecuted, enslaved and murdered Europe’s Jews, and the Jews of Warsaw, with a barbarity and inhumanity that render us speechless.”
Steinmeier stated: “I stand before you today and ask for forgiveness for the crimes that Germans committed here.”
The German president also expressed his gratitude for Poland and Israel’s reconciliation with his country, describing this as an “infinitely precious gift,” according to Germany’s DPA news agency.
German president draws Putin-Nazi parallels, condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Steinmeier went on to say: "You in Poland, you in Israel, you know from your history that freedom and independence must be fought for and defended. You know how important it is for a democracy to defend itself.”
He added: "But we Germans, too, have learned the lessons of our history. Never again, which means that there must be no criminal war of aggression like Russia's against Ukraine in Europe," British broadcaster BBC reported.
The German president stated that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "has broken international law ... with his illegal attack on a peaceful, democratic neighbouring country."
Steinmeier added, as quoted by The Guardian: “This war brings immeasurable suffering, violence, destruction and death to the people of Ukraine."
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which broke out on April 19, 1943 and lasted until May 16, was the first uprising in German Nazi-occupied Europe and the largest act of armed resistance by Jews in World War II. It is estimated that about 13,000 insurgents died in the ghetto during the revolt.
Some surviving Jewish combatants later fought in the Warsaw Uprising, launched by Poland's underground Home Army (AK) on August 1, 1944.
The Warsaw ghetto, established in April 1940, was the largest of the many ghettos which the Germans set up across Poland to isolate the Jewish population after invading the country in September 1939.
The annual daffodil campaign is associated with noted ghetto fighter Marek Edelman, who before his death in 2009 placed daffodils at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw each year on the anniversary of the uprising.
The Polish president in December 2018 paid tribute to the last surviving Warsaw ghetto fighter who died in Israel at the age of 94.
German president handed report on Poland’s WWII losses
Earlier on Wednesday, Germany’s Steinmeier met with Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister Piotr Gliński.
Gliński presented the German head of state with an English-language version of the official Report on the Losses Sustained by Poland as a Result of German Aggression and Occupation During the Second World War, 1939-1945, according to officials.
Gliński said Poland was “hoping for dialogue” with Germany on the matter, “for the good of Europe, our future and the friendship between our nations.”
On Tuesday, Poland’s government adopted a resolution “on the need to regulate in Polish-German relations the issue of reparations, compensation and redress” for the losses caused by the German invasion and subsequent occupation of Poland during World War II.
Wednesday was day 420 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, The Guardian, DPA, BBC