ABSTRACT
In international histories of German unification, Poland is generally portrayed as seeking to slow or stall that process. Helmut Kohl's presence in Warsaw that day illustrated Poland's leading position among the East European states dismantling Communist power. Narratives of overcoming Polish intransigence also play into varying claims of responsibility for the success of German unification. In US-centered international histories, overcoming Polish caution and apprehension-particularly during a series of meetings between President George H. W. Bush and Kohl and then Bush and Tadeusz Mazowiecki in early spring 1990 provides an important example of United States leadership smoothing the way for unification. The legacy of the past is key to any analysis of Polish-German relations at the end of the Cold War. In scholarship focused on the French role in brokering the terms of German unification, the French are portrayed as both the protectors of Poland's legitimate concerns against German intransigence and able negotiators who refuted Polish demands that went too far.
