German Bundeswehr Assisting Its Polish Partner 🤡

TIMELINE - a follow up

Friday 30 October, 10:10

The Bundeswehr's 10th Panzer Division announces that "in early November" more than 6,000 of its soldiers will hold two exercises in Lithuania: Freedom Shield 26-II at Rūdninkai and Grand Eagle 26 at Pabradė.

The press release gives no dates. It does not say how the troops get there.

Poland, the country they have to cross, is not mentioned once.

Since when did Warsaw know about this exercise?

Why does a release about 6,000 soldiers on the move forget to mention the country they move through?

Friday 30 October, afternoon

The same day, an order appears on the Polish Constitutional Tribunal's website: a judge with a controversial status - Anna Korwin-Piotrowska - President Nawrocki never accepted her oath and does not recognise her as a judge at all - suspends the Tribunal's President Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy for a month and takes charge herself. Police appear on the Tribunal's grounds, acting on her information about "possible threats".

The German announcement in the morning, the Tribunal in the afternoon. Coincidence?

Friday 30 October, evening

President Karol Nawrocki (pro Trump) turns his plane around on the way to Senegal:

"At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning."

Was the event at the controversial Tribunal planned for an evening when the President was in the air?

Saturday 31 October

Less than a day later, Brussels speaks. A European Commission spokesperson tells Euronews: "The appointment of eight new members of the Constitutional Tribunal lies within the constitutional power of the Sejm." On Sunday the EU's Rule of Law Commissioner Michael McGrath repeats it to POLITICO.

The Tribunal changed hands on Friday evening. Brussels had its position ready by Saturday. Since when do the elites work this fast, and during a weekend?

Sunday 1 November

The police union "Policyjna Solidarność" writes an open letter to the national police chief. Officers across the country, it says, fear "possible interference in the work of a constitutional body of the state and a potential breach of the law". They were "left alone with accusations of committing crimes for carrying out the orders of their superiors". Police chief Marek Boroń answers the same day: everything was "fully in line with the law". Two days later, disciplinary proceedings are opened against the union's chairman, Jacek Łukasik.

When police officers have to ask in public whether their orders were legal, what kind of orders were they?

Monday 2 November

A column of seven military vehicles, several of them marked "Feldjäger", German military police, is filmed on the A2 just before the Trzciel exit, heading toward Poznań and Warsaw. Fact-checkers at Konkret24 confirm the video is real and dismiss the claim that the convoy was going "to the Tribunal".

They also write that they asked both the Polish army and the Bundeswehr about it, and that neither answered.

If the convoy was not going to the Tribunal, where was it going?

Why is German military police heading toward Warsaw the one question nobody wants to answer?

Tuesday 3 November

Britain and France announce "Koalicja", the first exercise of the multinational force for Ukraine: about 2,800 troops from ten European countries, Germany among them, at Nowa Dęba in south-eastern Poland, from 9 to 22 November.

Nowa Dęba is in the south-east. The A2 runs from the west to Warsaw. Which exercise was the A2 convoy for?

Tuesday 3 November

It comes out that Korwin-Piotrowska has asked the police in writing to "clear access" to the Tribunal's gate and entrance, blocked by the demonstrators, their tents and their stage. The police refuse.

"The police will not carry out any such actions," says Monika Matyjewicz of the national police press office. The assembly is legal.

The Polish police would not clear Poles away from their own Tribunal.

Wednesday 4 November, morning

MP Marek Jakubiak posts photos of German military trucks on the A4 and asks what they are doing there.

Wednesday 4 November, shortly after 12:30

German military trucks collide at km 124 of the A4 near Kostomłoty, heading toward Wrocław. Police speak of three trucks, the Polish Military Gendarmerie of two. Three German soldiers go to hospital with bruises; the drivers were sober.

Wednesday 4 November, evening

MP Dariusz Matecki films a group of German soldiers on Wiejska Street, right by the Sejm. They tell him they came "for an exhibition". MP Jakubiak writes to Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz: "Even in Warsaw you can now see uniformed German soldiers, what is going on here? Please inform us about the movements of German troops on Polish territory, you have that duty."

An exhibition, in uniform, in the week of the Tribunal?!?

Wednesday 4 November, evening

Only now, after the crash, comes the first official word.

The Military Gendarmerie's spokesman: "Poland was a transit country. According to the transit permit issued, the column did not require escort by the Polish armed forces." No destination, no exercise named.

A permit was issued, so someone in Warsaw knew. Who signed it, and when? Transit doesn't mean German soldiers can go shopping around Warsaw, or does it?

Thursday 5 November

At the time of writing, we have found no statement from the Ministry of National Defence, the Bundeswehr or the German embassy about the convoy on the A2 or the soldiers by the Sejm. Jakubiak's question to the minister is still open.

~~~

For readers outside central Europe, or not aware of the history, a reminder:

On 25 August 1939 the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein sailed into the port of Danzig, today's Gdańsk, on what Berlin called a courtesy visit.

She moored about 150 metres from the Polish garrison on the Westerplatte peninsula.

A week later, at around 4:45 in the morning of 1 September, her guns opened fire on that garrison. The Second World War had begun.

The night before, SS men dressed as Polish soldiers had "attacked" the German radio station in Gleiwitz, today's Gliwice, and broadcast a few words in Polish. It was one of about two dozen staged incidents meant to make Poland look like the aggressor.

Donald Tusk (Donald – a very Polish first name - not) is not just Poland's prime minister.

From 2014 to 2019 he was President of the European Council in Brussels, chairing the meetings of EU heads of government. When he ran for a second term in 2017, the EU re-elected him 27 to 1.

The one vote against him was Poland's own government.

From 2019 to 2022 he led the European People's Party, the EU-wide family of the CDU, Angela Merkel's party. He came back to Warsaw as prime minister in December 2023.

When the European Commission declares that appointing the new judges "lies within the constitutional power of the Sejm", siding with him against the democratically elected President, and German soldiers turn up on Polish roads the same week with no explanation, is it a coincidence?

THE OTHER SIDE

To be fair: Grand Eagle is not new, it ran in Lithuania in September 2025 as well. Feldjäger routinely escort big Bundeswehr columns on public roads, including through Poland on the way to Lithuania. And the German police vans filmed near Spała in October turned out to be on their way to a railway police exercise, RAILEX, as both Polish and German police explained within days.

There may be a perfectly boring explanation. Then why not provide it?

So here is what is. A judge the President never swore in takes over the Tribunal on a Friday afternoon, while the President is in the air. Brussels blesses it by Saturday.

Polish people fill the street outside, legally, and Polish police refuse to remove them.

Police officers ask in public whether their own orders were legal, and the one who asks gets a disciplinary case.

In the same week, German military police drive toward Warsaw and German soldiers in uniform stand by the Sejm, and the government that let them in says nothing.

One coincidence is a coincidence. This many in one week is a timetable.

If someone had prepared a hurried putsch, would it look any different from this?