Schroeder bows to Warsaw Anti-Nazi heroes

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (R) bows in front of the memorial dedicated to the victims of the Warsaw Uprising 1944 Sunday in Warsaw. Schroeder came to Warsaw with one-day visit for the ceremonies of the 60th anniversary of Warsaw Uprising 1944. PHOTO: AFP

Historians call the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which outnumbered and ill-equipped Polish insurgents fought some of Nazi Germany's toughest troops, one of the most tragic episodes of World War II. Poles see it as a symbol of suffering under German occupation which laid Poland open to Soviet domination.

Schroeder, the first German head of government to attend an uprising anniversary, twice bowed low in front of a monument to the insurrection under the gaze of elderly Polish survivors who stood at attention as they marked their bloody 63-day battle.

"On this spot of Poland's pride and Germany's shame we hope for reconciliation and peace," Schroeder said at the closing ceremony for the Uprising's biggest ever anniversary.