The rhetoric of opposition politicians is surprisingly harsh regarding Germany, which representatives of the ruling coalition view critically. According to the ruling camp, Poland's conflict with Germany – a NATO ally, a leading EU country and our main trading partner – when Russia threatens Europe is inconsistent with the Polish raison d'état.
During the celebration of the anniversary of the Greater Poland Uprising, President Karol Nawrocki said that the Polish national community “must be open to the West, but also ready to defend the western border of the Republic of Poland.” He also recalled that Greater Poland resisted Prussian and German imperialism, which was “built on the ideas of liberal thinkers and politicians.”
Prime Minister Donald Tusk reacted strongly to these words and wrote on X (former Twitter) that “President Nawrocki again pointed to the West as the main threat to Poland.” The president of PiS, Jarosław Kaczyński, also repeatedly pointed to Germany as a threat to Poland. He called the EU an organization subordinated to Germany's interests and serving Germany to gain hegemony in Europe. At the PiS program convention in Katowice in October 2025, the PiS president talked about “the plans of Brussels and Berlin to change the situation in Europe (…), all except two, i.e. Germany and France (…), countries, including Poland, have essentially ceased to exist.”
What do Poles think about the “German threat”?
“Do you consider modern Germany a threat to Poland?” — this is the question we asked participants of the SW Research survey for rp.pl.
“Yes” answered 29.2 percent. subjects. The answer “no” was given by 56.1 percent. respondents, and 14.7 percent study participants have no opinion on this matter.
— Germany is not a country that poses a threat to Poland, according to almost two out of three respondents (63%) who are over 50 years old and six out of ten respondents (59%) with higher education. This opinion is shared more often than others by respondents whose income ranges from PLN 5,001 to PLN 7,000 net (62%) and residents of cities with a population of 200,000 or more. up to 499 thousand people (62%) – Adam Jastrzębski, senior project manager at SW Research, commented on the research results for rp.pl.
Research methodology
The study was conducted by the research agency SW Research among users of the SW Panel online panel on December 30-31, 2025. The analysis covered a group of 800 Internet users over 18 years of age. The sample was selected in a random quota manner. The structure of the sample was adjusted using analytical weight to correspond to the structure of Poles over 18 years of age in terms of key characteristics related to the subject of the study. When constructing the weight, socio-demographic variables were taken into account.
