Poland loses to Germany in Euro, as 1939 Nazi conquest again makes headlines

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had an important message for his countrymen on the eve of Sunday's Euro 2008 game against Germany, played in Austria. It was just sport, not war, Tusk said.

Naturally, this only further convinced Poles that this, indeed, was war.

It was war not merely over honor on the field, after 15 games and 75 years without one Polish victory. For both European Union member states, this was an opportunity to dredge up memories from the real war, the Nazis' occupation of Poland.

Polish honor was not restored. The Germans won 2-0, with both goals scored by Polish-born striker Lucas Podolski.

"It was faster than in 1939," said a person who identified himself as a German on a Polish talkback site. The Polish media bitterly noted that the Poles' last victory over the Germans was at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

All Poland's energies were focused in an effort to reenact that victory, which was even turned into the logo 0:1410 in Poland.

A large group of Polish-speakers gathered at the home of Polish Ambassador to Israel Agnieszka Magdziak-Miszewska to see the game. They all knew the logo did not describe a real result, but believed that victory was a reasonable possibility. A young embassy employee ultimately paid the defeat's price when she was thrown into the water for daring to bet on a German victory.

"After all it's only a game," the ambassador tried to console herself, two red-and-white Polish flags painted on her cheeks. The German ambassador to Israel, Dr. Harald Kindermann, had been invited to watch the game with her, but he was a no-show.

There's nothing new in soccer raising nationalist tempers, but the Polish-German enmity of the past week went far beyond that. In a week of sports frenzy, these Europeans wallowed in murky waves of nationalism and hatred that briefly swamped the European Union's ideals. World War II was back in the center of public debate. Neo-Nazi cries that "all Poles should wear yellow patches" didn't come out of nowhere.

The war erupted in the tabloid press in both countries well before the confrontation reached the stadium in Klagenfurt, Austria. The cover of the Polish newspaper Super Express featured a photomontage of the Polish team's coach, the Dutchman Leo Beenhakker, holding the decapitated heads of Germany's head coach Joachim Loew and Germany's captain Michael Ballack. The headline screams: "Leo, bring us their heads." Beside it, in smaller letters, was the beginning of a sentence, "A good German is..."

Beenhakker's apology to the Germans did not help matters. The cover was immediately copied in the German tabloid Bild, which made a list of 50 reasons to "love" the Poles. One of them was the Polish origin of German porn queen Teresa Orlowski. If the Germans love us so much, Poles said in response, why don't they pay us compensation for destroying Warsaw in the war?

That unfinished war returned like an old refrain. Days before the game a seemingly amusing trailer to the game was released on the Internet in Germany, showing a team of especially repulsive Germans stopping by the roadside to relieve themselves, while humming the German national anthem. As they finish with a look of relief, they see that their car was stolen. To Germans it is clear that a Pole stole the car.

Polish honor generated a few amusing parodies on the broadcast, which were displayed on Polish television and YouTube. One of them shows the Germans relieving themselves against a backdrop of gunfire, bombardments, collapsing buildings and corpses.

Despite the Polish hopes, the goalkeeper failed to stop the Germans and commentators predict that the team will come home after the tournament's early stage. All the Poles can do - much like a small Middle Eastern country at the Eurovision contest - is moan sadly: "They don't like us here."

	Austrian policeman arresting a German fan after violent clashes with Polish fans during the Euro soccer match. (Reuters)