What Pushed Poland into the Arms of the EU

If there was one man who behaved with more cynicism and ruthlessness than Hitler, it was, of course, Stalin. The Russians had incited the revolt; they appealed on the radio for the Poles to take up arms against the Nazis – and yet the truth was that they did not want it to succeed. They wanted the Poles crushed before they moved in; and so the Red Army simply sat on the other side of the River Vistula – in full view of the city – while for 63 days the Nazis got on with murdering the Poles. Then, when Hitler was forced to withdraw, they moved into Warsaw and established the Communist tyranny that was to last more or less unbroken until 1990. The modern Poles look at Russia today, they look at Vladimir Putin – and naturally they want to bury themselves as deeply as possible in the comforting bosom of a German-led Europe.