© Ulrich Tempel
On 1 September 1939, the Third Reich invaded Poland. This marked the beginning of the Second World War. To commemorate this event, we invite you to attend a ceremony at the temporary ‘Memorial Site for Poland 1939 to 1945’ on Heinrich-von-Gagern-Straße in Berlin on Monday, 1 September 2025, at 4 p.m.
The programme for the event
4:00 p.m. – 5:15 p.m. Speeches and wreath laying in the presence of the Polish Army's military guard of honour
6:00 p.m. Lecture and panel discussion on the invasion of Poland at the Pilecki Institute at Pariser Platz 4a, followed by a get-together
This event is organised by the Embassy of Poland, the Federal Foreign Office, the German Poland-Institute and the German-Polish House.
At 6 p.m., we invite you to a lecture by PD Dr. John Zimmermann (Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces, Potsdam) followed by a panel discussion with Prof. Martin Aust (University of Bonn) and Prof. Jerzy Piotr Kochanowski (Warsaw University) at the Pilecki Institute on Pariser Platz, followed by a get-together.
The evening event is jointly organised by the German-Polish House and the Pilecki Institute.
Participants in the panel discussion:
Prof. Martin Aust is a professor at the University of Bonn in the Department of Eastern European History. His publications include Erinnerungsverantwortung. Deutschlands Vernichtungskrieg und Besatzungsherrschaft im östlichen Europa 1939-1945 (2021), Die Russische Revolution. From Tsarist Empire to Soviet Empire (2017) and Poland and Russia in the Dispute over Ukraine. Competing Memories of the Wars of the 17th Century from 1934 to 2006 (2006). More information can be found here.
©Barbara Frommann
Since 2019, Oberst PD Dr. John Zimmermann has been head of the Military History until 1945 research department at the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces in Potsdam (ZMSBwZentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr). He is currently involved in the project The Military and its Germans. Military Identity in Germany from 1870 to 1970. The study examines the question of how military identities emerged in Germany since its formation as a state in distinction to civil society, how they can be identified over time, and how their persistence in the face of political and social changes can be explained. More information can be found here.
© Bundeswehr/Andrea Nimpsch
Prof. Jerzy Piotr Kochanowski is a Polish historian and professor of history at the University of Warsaw. His research focuses on Poland during the Second World War, Polish-German relations in the 20th century, and the social history of Poland and Eastern Europe in the 20th century. Since 2015, he has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of East Central European Studies and, since 2014, a member of the steering committee of the Centre for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin. More information can be found here.
© Foto: Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena
The anniversary celebrations will begin on Sunday, 31 August, with a guided tour of the city led by writer and journalist Dorota Danielewicz. The tour will start at 12 noon and visit places in Berlin that bear traces of Poland's involvement in the Second World War.
As part of the Berlinski Tour, a total of 47 stops in the centre of Berlin can be visited via various routes that highlight Polish aspects of the city's history. The stops are accompanied by recordings of stories told by Polish revolutionaries, aristocrats, diplomats and poets, journalists, writers and forced labourers who spent special moments of their lives in the capital. More information about the Berlinski Tour can be found here.