German FM in Poland for talks, WWII Warsaw revolt’s 75th anniversary

Heiko Maas is highest German official in years to attend observances for uprising against Nazis

By AP and ToI Staff 31 July 2019, 8:38 pm
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas arrives for the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin, Germany, July 31, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

WARSAW, Poland — Germany’s foreign minister is in Poland for talks and to attend observances marking 75 years since the Warsaw Uprising against German Nazi troops that occupied Poland during World War II.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas began the two-day visit Wednesday with a brief meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

He then met with Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz for talks on bilateral cooperation.

On Thursday, Maas will join wreath laying ceremonies at memorials to the fighters of Warsaw’s 1944 revolt against the occupying Germans, which left some 200,000 fighters and civilians dead and the city razed to the ground.

In this file photo from July 26, 2019, a worker is washing a monument to the fighters of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the occupying Nazi Germans ahead of ceremonies next week marking the 75th anniversary of the heroic struggle, in Warsaw, Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

He will also visit a museum that tells the story of the 63-day struggle that ended with the insurgents’ surrender.

Maas is the highest German official in years to attend the observances.

The Warsaw Uprising is separate from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the 1943 act of Jewish resistance against the Nazis in the height of the Holocaust, when transports led hundreds of thousands to concentration camps and death camps. Around 13,000 Jews were killed in that uprising.

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