Demonstrators attempting to install a wooden cross at a WWII memorial say they were brutally attacked by officers
Police in Berlin forcibly broke up a demonstration by Polish activists seeking to place a wooden cross at a memorial to their country’s victims of Nazi Germany on Tuesday, according to organizers and footage circulating online.
The organizers, the Polish Border Defense Movement, have argued that the memorial, currently marked by a large commemorative boulder near the Reichstag, does not adequately reflect the scale of Poland’s suffering during World War II and lacks both a cross and explicit national symbols.
Footage from the scene appeared to show police officers pushing and shoving participants as they attempted to approach the memorial. Several activists were seen being physically restrained, while video also showed officers struggling with demonstrators over the wooden cross. Six people were temporarily detained during the operation, according to police.
⚠️🔴 German Police Brutality Against Members of Poland’s Border Defence Movement
The group travelled to Berlin to place a cross near a memorial dedicated to Poles who died during World War II. German authorities reportedly would not allow the cross or any historical banners to… pic.twitter.com/wJUjDJIpph
“The German police brutally attacked us. The officers began to thrash us and tried to wrest the cross from our hands. We refused to allow this desecration,” Robert Bakiewicz, the movement’s founder, wrote on X.
The movement has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of EU migration policy, particularly migrant returns from Germany to Poland, a dispute that has fueled tensions between Warsaw and Berlin in recent years.
Berlin police said officers intervened after participants ignored instructions to either hold a stationary protest or visit the memorial individually.
“Since resistance occurred… our operational forces applied coercive measures,” Berlin Police said on X.
Berlin police said officers intervened after participants ignored instructions to either hold a stationary protest or visit the memorial individually.
“Since resistance occurred… our operational forces applied coercive measures,” Berlin Police said on X.
Some users argued that the images carried particular historical resonance given Germany’s wartime occupation of Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany carried out a campaign of terror that resulted in the deaths of approximately six million Polish citizens, including around three million Polish Jews.
The incident comes amid broader debates in the EU over the legacy of World War II and the public commemoration of its victims. In recent years, several Eastern European countries, particularly Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have restricted the public display of Soviet symbols associated with Victory Day commemorations and removed numerous Soviet-era monuments. Moscow has repeatedly condemned such measures as attempts to rewrite the history of World War II.
