Berlin’s new envoy faces daunting task of healing Germany-Poland rift

Germany’s newly appointed coordinator for relations with Poland, Knut Abraham, had been in the job barely three days when his role suddenly became much more complicated.

On the night of June 1, the Christian Democrat MP stayed up late listening to radio coverage of Poland’s presidential election, drifting off after exit polls predicted a narrow win for Rafał Trzaskowski — backed by centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a close ally of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Merz had signalled Warsaw’s importance by visiting on his first day in office and later traveling with Tusk and the French and British leaders to Kyiv. An Euractiv article that dives into the strained relations of two European regional powers notes that Abraham woke up in the morning, shocked to realise that the far-right candidate, Karol Nawrocki, had won in the end.

His first reaction of “This will be a challenge” was an understatement. As coordinator, Abraham is tasked with mending a relationship vital to Europe’s security framework, yet still clouded by the legacy of World War II.

Berlin has a strategy, the article cites him, but time is short — and failure could undermine broader EU efforts to strengthen military coordination as the Russian threat grows.

Poland shares that concern. “As two large countries at the heart of Europe, we bear a great responsibility for the future of the EU and our societies,” said Jan Tombiński, Poland’s ambassador in Berlin.

History’s dark shadow

Germany and Poland, the largest economies on either side of the EU’s east-west divide, are among Europe’s top defence spenders and staunch supporters of Ukraine. Yet the Nazi occupation, which killed millions of Poles, remains an open wound. Berlin’s refusal to pay further reparations is a reliable rallying cry for Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which backed Nawrocki — and being seen as too soft on Germany carries political risk in Warsaw.

Poland’s foreign ministry fired Abraham’s counterpart in August and abolished the position after rumours that he had floated holding a seminar on returning property left by expelled Germans in 1945.

Immigration serves as a hot issue

Merz has pledged empathy for the “eventful history” and an end to the “speechlessness” between Berlin and Warsaw — a stalemate he blamed on his predecessors. But his decision to close Germany’s border to asylum-seekers has inflamed tensions and given new ammunition to Poland’s far right. According to the article, false claims soon spread that German police were pushing migrants into Poland.

Warsaw responded with its own border checks, marking a rocky start for Merz’s reset. Abraham, a former diplomat at the German embassy in Warsaw, concedes that the border issue is a major strain but says the temporary checks also “signal a change in Germany’s migration policy that aligns more closely with Poland’s position.” He adds that Polish officials have shown “a lot of understanding.”

For Abraham, the mission is clear: “The most important thing is to restore trust,” the article quotes the diplomat, who stressed that the new government is “integrating Poland at a level of intensity the previous government did not demonstrate.”

By Nazrin Sadigova