The international realities which existed after the end of World War II and, in particular, after the Cold War began, including the status of the authorities of the Republic of Poland in exile and the fundamentals of the Federal Republic of Germany’s foreign policy, ruled out any possibility of establishing political contacts. However, contacts of social nature were possible. Some, though, involved considerable risk, such as, for instance, the undertaking of conversations with communities of Germans expelled from the territories incorporated into Poland after 1945. The émigrées exposed themselves to criticism on the part of both the émigré milieux as well as those in Poland.
Meetings between Polish and émigré historians became one of the forms of contact of this nature. However, browsing through the newspapers of the day leads to the conclusion that they met with mixed reactions among the Polish émigré community.
The first meeting was held from 10th to 14th October 1956 in Tübingen and the second, from 17th to 19th March 1964, in London. At both, the German side was represented by numerous professional historians and directors of academic institutes dealing with East Europe and, or including, Poland.
Professor Tytus Komarnicki, a pre-war diplomat, was particularly active on the part of the Poles. For the Germans, these contacts were valuable, inter alia, because the Polish expatriate milieu in London, as well as those in the U.S. and France, were very knowledgeable as regards archive resources for the period from 1918 to 1945 and had access to a great many documents concerning the history of Poland and held, for instance, by the Polish Institute and the General Sikorski Museum. There were also numerous witnesses to history among those communities, as well as eminent pre-war scholars.
No further bilateral meetings between Polish émigrée historians and German historians were ever held. This resulted, to a large degree, from the fact that their formula had been exhausted. The pre-war generation of Polish historians was passing away. The next generations of Polish émigrée historians moved in general academic circles and were less enclosed within a milieu of their own.
The bilateral relations between the FRG and the PRP were changing as well. Interest in a more active Ostpolitik was on a continuing upsurge in Bonn, which resulted in more extensive opportunities for academic contacts as well. The PRP authorities, for their part, were interested in overcoming the state of suspension in relations with the FRG. The domestic academic milieu was changing, too.
Both the meetings were a form of academic contact, but they were also of significance to the reconciliation of the two nations, or to the search for opportunities of overcoming their enmity.