The Role of Polish Intellectuals in the Process of Reconciliation with Germany. Lessons for Korea

Abstract

The experience of World War II (WWII) and its aftermath resulted in an unprecedented common hostility towards the Germans in the Polish society. In 1945 a Polish-German reconciliation seemed improbable. However, the process started quite quickly and became an interesting case of mental evolution of feud societies. The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of Polish intellectuals, which seems to be crucial for this process, in order to find some lessons to be learned in the context of North and South Korea division. We believe that deep understanding of factors standing behind the great success of Polish-German reconciliation may be useful when thinking about future reunification of the two Koreas. On the one hand we are aware that nothing can be directly transferred in such distant cases, but on the other hand we believe that Polish-German example may be a source of inspiration and a “food for thought”.

Keywords: German-Polish relations, Korea, Polish intellectuals