Deutsche Post 50th Anniversary of Kniefall von Warschau

 

DEUTSCHE POST 50th Anniversary of Kniefall von Warschau  (or Warsaw Genuflection) refers to a gesture of humility and penance by West Germany Chancellor Willy Brandt towards the victims of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. 

 

Earlier on 7 December 1970, he had signed the Treaty of Warsaw, which acknowledged the Oder–Neisse line as the final German border with Poland. 

 

In a Der Spiegel survey at the time 48% of West Germans considered it excessive. This Ostpolitik gesture and treaty was also not popular within his own political party. To Poland, the Jewish holocaust survivors and the rest of the world it meant Germany (West Germany) had turned a leaf in acknowledging its atrocities.

 

Now, 50 years on his spontaneous act of humility and penance has been honoured in a first day cover stamp, dated 7 December 2020.

 

See video of the event HERE.