In a couple of weeks the German–Polish Textbook Commission will have its annual conference in the German city of Wittenberg. It will be at the same time the 30th anniversary of this commission, which was established in 1972 at a time when Europe was still deeply divided and when the shadows of the cold war hardly had begun to fade away. There certainly are very few examples, if any at all, of such a long, continuous and intensive academic co-operation between two countries, whose bilateral relations are burdened by the past and which for long were part of two different and vice versa hostile political camps. More than 300 academicians, textbookauthors and teachers since then have taken part in the commission´s work, and while in the beginning the members of the commission represented a generation who still were influenced by their own personal war-time experience as soldiers on the one side and as victims of occupation and terror on the other side, today it is the generation of “grandchildren”, who sometimes as young students and scholars had taken part in the early commission´s work, who today have taken over the job of their predecessors. The German–Polish textbook co-operation, besides all its other dimensions, to which I will come back in a moment, therefore also and not the least was a project of reconciliation between individuals who turned their personal antagonistic experiences into mutual respect and often into a long-term friendship. Prof. Klaus Zernack, one of the driving forces of this co-operation, who for two decades has been the German president of the commission, therefore certainly is correct, when he once stated, that this co-operation even can be considered a unique attempt at reconciliation through historiography and textbooks, which in a fundamental turn changed the traditions of bilateral academic relations among our two countries, from a century of almost exclusively sharp antagonisms and political instrumentalization of historiography, textbooks and education into the attempt to come to terms with the joint past through a common historical discourse.

Due to its remarkable character as an institutionalised attempt to overcome the legacy of the past and the ideological confrontation as well by a common revision of schoolbooks, the joint German–Polish textbook work often has been looked upon as a kind of model also for other countries, which after heavy conflicts or bloodshed face the necessity of reconciliation. In Asia, especially Korean and Japanese institutions often look at the German–Polish example to overcome the shadows of World War II between their two countries. The German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer, recently as well suggested in his peace plan to the Middle Eastern conflict to establish a joint Israeli–Palestinian textbook commission as a measure for peace- and confidence-building, once the violence has been stopped, something which had already existed in the past and in which also our Institute has been involved in.With all respect for its contribution to a mutual reconciliation, it should however not be overlooked that the German–Polish textbook work took place under very special and all in all very favourable conditions, and that these favourable conditions to a great degree can be held responsible for the success of its work.

The most important condition certainly was the political will among the responsible governmental elites on both sides to make textbooks and education a matter for reconciliation and for the process of détente. There had been earlier attempts of textbook co-operation, initiated by private individuals or non-government organisations, which all failed due to the missing political support. Only the German Ostpolitik and the Warsaw treaty of 1970, which de facto accepted the territorial status quo and gave Poland more security as far as the integrity of its borders was concerned, cleared the way for the joint textbook co-operation. If there is something to learn from the German–Polish experience, then it probably is the lesson that the undisputed political will to such a reconciliation is the crucial precondition for any success of joint textbook co-operation. Rewriting textbooks thus must be part of a broader process of reconciliation it hardly can start or initiate it.

Closely linked with this precondition is a second one, which as well in the German–Polish case became a basics for its success, namely that the political elites are ready to leave the matter to the academics. There has been a fierce public political debate on the work of the German–Polish commission in both countries, especially in Germany during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and there also were attempts of political pressure on the commission on both sides. But in the end, in both countries politics left the commission enough room for its autonomous work, based on the principles of academic discourse, and politicians accepted or at least respected the results of this work.

What were the intentions and what are the results of 30 years of German–Polish textbook co-operation? During the 1970s and 1980s the main intention was to correct the most distorted historical misinterpretations and to eliminate the often negative, sometimes hostile perception of the other, which had characterized the textbooks as a result of the experience of the past and most of all under the influence of the Cold War over the first three post-war decades.Textbooks in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s on both sides largely had been instrumental in the ongoing political and ideological conflicts between the two states, most of all in the border question, which stood in the very centre of the frozen relations between Poland and Germany. Now, after the Warsaw treaty of 1970 had laid a new political foundation for the two countries´ relations, textbooks were intended to transfer the diplomatic normalisation into a process for mutual understanding among the people, and especially among the young generations. It was the intention to overcome the attitude of ignorance towards the other on the German side and the climate of fear and mistrust on the Polish sides, which had been fostered by the schoolbooks.To do so, the joint textbook Commission in its early work was trying to look for a consensus in crucial historical questions; it was searching for the one and common historical narrative, acceptable to both sides. As a matter of fact, as critics of the commission still till today often are claiming, this consensus sometimes had to be built on political compromises. Especially the question of the Soviet – German treaty of 1939, which led to the partition of Poland, under the political conditions of the 1970s/80s could not be addressed, and no less the question of the expulsion of the Germans after World War II was a topic which could not be dealt with in a proper way at that time. These kinds of compromises, however, under the constraints of the Cold War were inevitable, they were a price to pay to start with the process of textbook improvement and reconciliation and to keep it alive. From today’s perspective and in times of post-modernist theories the search for a consensus and a common narrative may look a little bit anachronistic or even naive. Differences in historical narratives and their multiperspectivity today do not confuse us anymore. Under the conditions of the 1970s however, the search for a consensus, the compromise probably was the only way to break up the deadlock of hostile perception among the two societies.

By far not everything, that the textbook commission agreed upon, found its way into the textbooks. From the distance of 30 years the immediate results of the textbook work can be described in sober terms, without any euphoria, but also without any need for false modesty. Sometimes the proposals of the textbook commission only slowly found their way into the schoolbooks; other suggestions were ignored at all on both sides, and many things changed in a favorable way without being directly induced by the commission´s work. All in all, however, since the late 1970s the picture of the two countries´ relations in schoolbooks has changed substantially, and the joint textbook co-operation has a great deal of responsibility for that. A differentiated picture of the other and of the relations between the two peoples has been developed, leaving behind the paradigm of German–Polish history as a thousand-year old history of conflict and confrontation. German responsibility and moral guilt for the policy of terror and annihilation during World War II have become an undisputed focus of the textbook presentation in Germany and has been added to the fate of expulsion and the loss of territory, which had been in the centre of the textbook picture before. The ideological stereotype of a German “Drang nach Osten” (drive to the East) as a continuing threat to Poland began to disappear from the textbooks in Poland long before the end of communism.Without the textbook commission´s proposals there certainly would not have been such a fundamental change and I can´t see any other example, that the picture of another country and nation in schoolbooks changed so substantially in such a short amount of time as in the case of Germany and Poland. Without any doubts, therefore, the joint textbook commission with its work, and also with the public debate it provoked, without any doubts became an important part of the overall process of normalisation and reconciliation, induced by the Ostpolitik.

The initial intentions to eliminate the negative stereotypes and obvious misinterpretations from the textbooks in many aspects has come to an end with the annus mirabilis of 1989. The post- 1989 development has changed the conditions and the objectives for a joint German–Polish textbook work fundamentally. Open hostile perceptions and extreme distortions of the picture of the other have more or less disappeared from the textbooks; ideologically motivated stereotypes, which in particular in Poland were frequent till 1989, of course have lost their relevance with the process of democratisation. A system of competing and pluralistic textbooks, similar to other European countries, since long is the practice in Poland and as in Germany there is no monopolistic and binding picture of the past any more as during the time of communism. Does this mean that there is no need for any textbook co-operation any more? Certainly not. As much as the need for reconciliation is a kind of perpetuum mobile, also textbook co-operation in order to foster the process of reconciliation has not lost its momentum.
For several reasons: First of all, even in the most recent textbooks there still are distortions in the narratives and the result of academic research often is not reflected in an appropriate way in the textbooks. The way the question of expulsion is dealt with in Polish textbooks for example sometimes still is lacking behind the much more differentiated way Polish academic historiography is dealing with this topic today. Old and one-sided interpretations sometimes are still present, not as open stereotypes and prejudices as in the past, but as underlying assumption of the textbook-narratives. (You could demonstrate this for example in the way the medieval settlement process is described, which on the German side sometimes has not lost its interpretation as a cultural benefit, and on the Polish side often still is described as a process of conquering “Polish lands”).

More than that however, new problems and new challenges have appeared together with the new possibilities and chances, the post-1989 development has opened. Some of these new challenges may be touched upon very briefly in the end.
First of all: All over Europe the process of integration has led to a retreat from a predominant concentration on the nation and national history in the textbooks in favour of a more European perspective of history. It certainly is no lack of respect for the substantial achievements, Polish textbooks have made since 1989, to point out, that especially in Poland there is still the need for more “Europeanization” of the textbooks’ perspectives. Polish textbooks often are still characterized by a strong polono-centric view and the framework of national history is still dominant. The German–Polish Textbook Commission over the last years often has dealt with this question and tried to present a perspective of the bilateral past, enframed in a broader perspective of common European history.

Often the picture of our common past more than that still is drawn by the story of conflicts among the two nations, while the story of cohabitation and mutual cultural enrichment sometimes is lacking or not “exploited” enough as a tool for fostering mutual understanding. The nationality struggle in Silesia following the First World War, for example, still is a major topic in Polish textbooks, extensively dealt with, while it is at best mentioned with a few lines in most German textbooks.

What has been called the “lack of symmetry in knowledge of each other” is another problem, very difficult to deal with in school: While Polish students learn and know a lot more about their German neighbours, Poland and Polish history is still something which is covered relatively rarely in German classes. Poland for most German students, still is what Klaus Zernack has called the “distant neighbour”. Under the conditions of our new post-1989 neighbourhood and more than that regarding the legacy of the past, this certainly is a deficit, which however due to the timeconstraints in history teaching hardly can be changed in school alone. The German–Polish Textbook Commission, which in her early period was more dealing with the criticism of textbooks and with proposals for their improvement, over the last years therefore has developed a joint German–Polish teacher´s book with sources and didactical models on how to deal with the German–Polish history in the 20th century. This book, which last year was published at the same time in Germany and Poland, gives teachers, but also others, opportunities to pay more intention to German–Polish topics in class.

And finally: the post-1989 development has not only produced a new neighbourhood among our two countries with many new potentials for the future. It sometimes also has revived old stereotypes, fears and prejudices. While in general, fortunately we can witness an increasing reduction of negative perceptions in the public opinion in both countries, especially among the younger generation, especially in the border regions often negative perceptions still are very frequent in particular on the German side. Despite many regional and cross-border initiatives, to become closer in geographical terms, sometimes unfortunately has meant an increasing distance among the people. There is a strong need for schools and textbooks to compete these remaining or even new traces of xenophobia, which are obvious among many Germans. Dealing with the German–Polish past in its regional dimension therefore should be more used in class as a matter for mutual understanding. German textbooks, especially in the new German “Länder”, which are the immediate neighbours to Poland, in my view still have not responded in a proper way to deal with this neighbourhood. And also in Poland, where regional history only after 1989 has got a more prominent place in textbooks and curricula against the predominant national perspective, certainly more could be done in this respect. The progress of reconciliation over the last decades should not be endangered by new xenophobia, and textbooks here still have their obligations.

The 30th annual meeting of the German– Polish Commission therefore probably will and should not be the last one, and while the immediate influence of textbooks and academic work on the hearts and minds of the people of course always is limited, it nevertheless will and shall not stop to contribute to the process of reconciliation, which besides many still existing problems has produced so many positive results.