[Skybird]

If in need of money - turn for the Germans.


Kaczynski has really no more tightened all the screws.Der Spiegel writes:
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With a reference to Nazi Germany, the PiS leader warns against German dominance in Europe. The agitation against the neighbors is supposed to bring his party votes. Even the opposition is denounced as stooges of the Germans.

When it comes to Germany, Jaroslaw Kaczynski is particularly vicious. That was the case in Legnica, Lower Silesia, where the powerful leader of Poland's national conservative ruling PiS party gave an hour-and-a-half speech over the weekend. Germany is striving for supremacy in Europe, Kaczynski warned his audience. And followed up: Germans today want to achieve by peaceful means what they once set out to do by military means.

The allusion to Nazi Germany is typical of Kaczynski. For months, he has been touring the country weekend after weekend, railing against Germany. Behind this is above all a domestic political calculation: The PiS is sinking in the polls, and Kaczynski hopes that anti-German tones will bring it voters.

In Legnica, the 73-year-old also lashed out at Brussels. If one believes Kaczynski, then behind the EU lies a plan by the Germans to create a "European state" where they will call the shots. But Kaczynski stressed that his party sees the strength of Europe in the diversity and sovereignty of individual countries. "And a situation of dominance, a situation in which one of the European states - today the largest next to Russia - implements by peaceful means those plans it once wanted to impose by military means, is a path to crisis and disaster." This, he said, concerns both Poland and Europe. "And also this country itself, namely Germany."

Kaczynski holds no government office. And yet he is considered the strong man in Poland's politics. Polish media like to write that he controls both head of government Mateusz Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda "from the back seat." Together with his twin brother Lech, Jaroslaw Kaczynski founded PiS in 2001. Lech Kaczynski later became Poland's head of state; in 2010, he died in the crash of the presidential plane in Smolensk.

What Kaczynski's "taxes from the back seat" looks like was recently experienced by Poland's Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak. He initially accepted the offer of German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) to protect Poland's airspace by deploying German Patriot air defense missiles. A day later, Kaczynski spoke up. German air defenses would be better stationed in Ukraine than in Poland, he suggested. Artfully, Blaszczak repeated the idea shortly thereafter. And Kaczynski had achieved his goal: Once again, Warsaw had given the Germans a good run for their money. In addition, the PiS government is using its demand for more than 1.3 trillion euros in reparations for the damage suffered during World War II to stir up public opinion against Berlin.

Poland is due to hold its next parliamentary election next fall. Whether the PiS, which has been in power since 2015, can win the election for a third time in a row is questionable. Poles are groaning under a horrendous inflation rate; in November, it was almost 18 percent.

The liberal-conservative opposition Civic Platform (PO) party of former EU Council President Donald Tusk currently leads the polls. During his tenure as Polish head of government, things went well between Warsaw and Berlin. This was reason enough for Kaczynski to put the cloak of the evil German on Tusk as well: "We have a German party in Poland," he said in mid-November at an appearance in the district town of Pabianice, referring to the PO.

Already once it has benefited the PiS in a dirty election campaign to link Donald Tusk with Germany. When the Gdansk native ran against Lech Kaczynski in the 2005 presidential campaign, PiS strategists floated the story of Tusk's "grandfather in the Wehrmacht." Tusk's grandfather Jozef had been recruited into the Wehrmacht in 1944 as a concentration camp inmate; he defected to Polish troops after a short time. The PiS's ploy caught on: Tusk lost the election.

The obsession with which Kaczynski and his followers are agitating against Germany and the opposition, which is supposedly dominated by Germany, is taking on strange forms. Last Thursday, when Germany's national team played Costa Rica in the World Cup in Qatar, Deputy Environment Minister Jacek Ozdoba asked for a recess in the Polish parliament - so that the deputies from Tusk's party could watch "the game of their German team.
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