Poland explains why the Order of the White Eagle was not taken from Mussolini and Schröder

The minister of the Polish president’s chancellery, Agnieszka Jędrzak, responded to Volodymyr Zelensky’s reproach that Warsaw had not stripped the Order of the White Eagle from a number of historical and political figures — in particular, Benito Mussolini, Catherine II, and Gerhard Schröder.

Zelensky mentioned these figures in the context of his own recent deprivation of Poland’s highest state honor. In response, Jędrzak published a detailed explanation on the social network X.

According to the official, Mussolini and Catherine II were not posthumously stripped of the order because Poland does not practice revoking an award after the death of its recipient. She explained the case of Schröder differently.

“The former German chancellor never insulted the Polish nation as openly as the president of Ukraine, although his activities in support of Putin’s Russia should be condemned as harmful to Poland and Europe. Under Schröder’s rule in Germany, not a single monument to Hitler or Himmler was erected. Not a single Bundeswehr unit was named after SS heroes,” Jędrzak wrote.

In her message, she also recalled to whom the Order of the White Eagle had been awarded as a symbol of gratitude from the Republic of Poland: among the recipients she named were Saint John Paul II, Generals Władysław Anders and Stanisław Maczek, Captain Witold Pilecki, Prime Minister Jan Olszewski, and dissident Andrzej Poczobut, as well as numerous foreign statesmen.

In addition to the fact of the award’s revocation itself, Jędrzak pointed to two specific insults on Zelensky’s part. The first she identified as the naming of a Ukrainian army unit after UPA heroes. The second was that Zelensky returned the order by courier.

“One cannot honor the killers of the ancestors of those who helped you in a matter of life and death,” the official wrote.

On June 19, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle specifically in connection with the naming of a Ukrainian Special Operations Forces unit after UPA heroes.