Towards the Polish-German Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation – BdV (Federation of Expellees) and the Rapprochement between Germany and Poland in 1990-1991

Abstract

One of the biggest imponderables in the process of Polish-German rapprochement at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s was the reaction of the Federation of Expellees (BdV) and its partner organizations. Despite the attempts undertaken by BdV to contest the final recognition of the Oder-Neisse border by the German state, the organization failed to gain allies. It had to accept the political reality and the decisions of the state, and find new areas of activity for itself, for which the Polish–German Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation laid solid foundations.