German and Polish bishops mark outbreak of war

On his first official visit abroad since he was elected president of the German bishops’ conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx and a delegation from the German Church spent three days in Poland commemorating with Polish bishops a number of key moments of the Second World War.

The purpose of the visit was to underline the significance for Europe of Poland’s fight for freedom and to deepen relations between the two countries.

The bishops first met at Gliwice on the Polish-German border to commemorate one of the incidents that led to the outbreak of war. The so-called “Gliwice Provocation” or “Gleiwitz Incident” occurred on 31 August 1939, when the German radio station in Gleiwitz, then in Germany, was seized by SS men in Polish army uniforms who broadcast that the station was now in Polish hands. The incident was used by Hitler as a pretext to declare war on Poland the next day.

The presidents of both bishops’ conferences, Cardinal Marx and Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, celebrated the Eucharist at Gliwice Cathedral. In his homily, which was read out in Polish, Marx said the German Church was still deeply shocked that the “suppression and annihilation, rape and destruction” of the Second World War emanated from Germany. “We are shattered that the Church did not see the war as wrong,” he said.

Later that evening, prayers were held at the foot of the 118-metre high wooden broadcasting tower which is now a museum.

On 1 September Cardinal Marx met the Archbishop of Warsaw, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, and visited the grave of Fr Jerzy Popieluszko, murdered by Polish secret police in 1984 for supporting the Solidarity movement.