ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the norm consistent nature of Ostpolitik since the 1960s and into the post-Cold War period. Despite the fact that over more than three decades a very specific German Ostpolitik had been in operation vis-a-vis Poland and the Czech Republic the outcomes have been remarkably different. In the case of Poland, elements of Roman Dmowski's integralist nationalism were selectively grafted onto the local variant of Marxist-Leninist ideology. The Polish communist party, much like its Czechoslovak counterpart, presented itself as the sole guarantor of national independence, and sought to establish continuity between the past and the present. In the German Polish case, by and large in both societies and government institutions norms exist that makes dealing with each other, and the past, possible in a largely constructive way. In the Czech case, history was re-written in such a way that the Czech/Bohemian relationship with Germany was presented as a tireless struggle for national liberation.
