813 days. This many have elapsed since the legally valid sentence in the case brought by Capt. Radłowski against the media giant that is the ZDF TV channel. For the now 99-year-old veteran days are a measure of time as each one is a struggle for the next. In turn, for the court they are merely subsequent moments in the wait for proceedings and the dispute over who should examine the appeal. So far, the Germans have rejected four candidates put forward by the Polish Supreme Court.
Germans would be “good” and Poles would still be “bad” had it not been for the war?
The former prisoner of Pawiak and Auchwitz as well as the hero of the Warsaw Uprising brought a lawsuit against a German state-owned TV station. He accused the Germans of “infringing the right to identity, dignity and national pride as well as the right to freedom from hate speech”. That was caused by the series broadcast by ZDF and produced by a German film studio UFA Fiction. The Captain, supported by the World Association of Home Army Soldiers, demanded an apology and clarification of the film’s distorted message about the AK (Armia Krajowa – Home Army).
The German broadcaster too had quite an interest to defend. To admit to having made a mistake would imply far greater losses than the cost of the clarification programme. It is also a different approach to history, which was crucial in the case of the series “Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter” (“Our mothers, our fathers”).
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The authors of this miniseries present five friends, nice twenty-year-olds. The war will alter their destinies and lead in different directions, yet, no matter what they do or what they commit, their actions will be determined by the cruelty of the times, not bad will or nature.
Everything changes when Polish partisans appear on the screen. The main subject of litigation is the scene in which men with white-and-red armbands known form the Warsaw Rising halt a transport of Jews going, as it turns out, to a concentration camp. One of the so-called AK soldiers, smiling cynically and speaking with a bizarre accent which was probably unintentional, utters a few sentences which will be remembered even by the least fragile spectator: “We will drown the Jews like cats” or “Jews are as dirty as communists or Russians. Better dead than alive”.
A similarly shocking impression remains after the scene where a “Polish partisan” opens the door to a van full of prisoners in striped uniforms. He looks at them for a while in disgust, then, having understood that these crowded people are Jews, closes the van.
The conclusion imposes itself: the Polish soldier had a choice, but, as we can assume, his inborn anti-Semitism made him act in such a shameful way.
Germans: we were waiting for this kind of film
When 10 years ago the series was broadcast for the first time, the vast majority of German viewers welcomed it almost euphorically. The German critics wrote with enthusiasm that they had waited for this kind of film. New generations were tired of remembering the war on their knees. The time had come to point out other culprits, if not immediate ones, then the moral ones. Less numerous voices of critique from the other side of the Oder saying that history didn’t look so uplifting in reality were deafened by the admiration of a 20 million German audience, multiplied in subsequent countries and further continents. It was specifically from “Our mothers, our father” that viewers in Japan or Australia learned about the role that Poles had allegedly played in WWII without having the slightest idea what it was like. The Americans even awarded the producers an Emmy in the Best TV Miniseries category. Anyway, it was just one of many awards that went to German creators.
There were also good partisans… from the left-wing
Against the backdrop of the film’s growing popularity a lawsuit progressed after an accusation was brought by Capt. Radłowski – one of the genuine AK soldiers. The case, filed in 2013, progressed slowly at first, but three years later it gained momentum despite further problems piled up by the opposing party. German witnesses called by the Polish court were reluctant to testify. The German side felt disturbed by Polish expert witnesses who “were raised in the cult of the Home Army”, which, according to the ZDF lawyers implied a risk of bias in the opinions they had prepared.
Among the called witnesses there was prof. Julius Schoeps, a well-known German historian, acting as a consultant in the series. On the occasion of the film’s première on Polish Television he gave it an interview in which he stated that “within the ranks of the Home Army there were anti-Semitic groups and there is nothing new about it”, though he added for consolation that there were also good partisans… form the left-wing, which helped the Jews. Either way, he did not conceal the true reasons for his pushing forward such interpretation of history: “I’m a Jew and a German citizen, therefore I have a slightly different perspective from somebody who is not Jewish – he pointed out in the interview.
Testifying before the Polish court via video links from Potsdam, he left the hearing without saying a word, concluding that he wasn’t accurately translated.
