Warschauer Kniefall

Kniefall von Warschau (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 what was then the Communist People's Republic of Poland 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, surrounded by a large group of dignitaries and press photographers.

Brandt had actively resisted the early Nazi regime, and had spent most of the time of Hitler's reign in exile. The occasion of Brandt's visit to Poland at the time was the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw between West Germany and the People's Republic of Poland, guaranteeing German acceptance of the new borders of Poland. The treaty was one of the Brandt-initiated policy steps (the 'Ostpolitik') to ease tensions between West and East during the Cold War.

On the same day, Brandt signed the Treaty of Warsaw, which acknowledged the Oder-Neisse-Line as the final German border with Poland. Both actions attracted controversy within Germany, as did Ostpolitik in general, favored only by a narrow majority in public opinion. It was disputed within his own party, whose voters had included a significant proportion of expellees from the formerly German territories in Poland, most whom then went to the conservative parties.

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