ABSTRACT
Since its beginning at the end of the 10th century, the Polish state has been confronted by powerful neighbors on its western and eastern borders, and by the lack of natural barriers to shield the nation from external political and military pressures. The slice of Europe occupied by the Polish nation functions as a wide passageway between two distinct parts of the continent and as a natural gate from the West to the Euro-Asian plains in the East. The war left both nations defeated, economically ruined, and politically exposed to foreign influence. While Germany's territorial losses and political divisions resembled those of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Poland was once again under foreign domination with only nominal sovereignty vested in the hands of its pro-Soviet government in Warsaw. The spontaneous revolutionary explosion in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 canoe to its perhaps most dramatic climax with fall of Honecker regime and the crumbling of Berlin Wall.
