by Janet McEvoy
WARSAW, Aug 1 (AFP) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder paid an unprecedented tribute on Sunday to the 200,000 victims of the doomed Warsaw uprising against the Nazis which started exactly 60 years ago.
Making the first-ever attendance by a German head of government at the commemorations of the 1944 uprising, in which Warsaw was destroyed, Schroeder bowed as he laid a wreath at the imposing monument to the victims.
He made his gesture minutes after the Polish capital came to a halt and sirens rang out to mark the exact time on August 1, 1944 -- 5:00 pm (1500 GMT) -- when the non-communist resistance group, the Polish Home Army (AK), launched the 63-day uprising.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Britain`s Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott were also present in Warsaw, representing Poland`s wartime western allies, who were accused of doing too little to help the insurgency.
The uprising was directed militarily against the German Nazis, who occupied Warsaw at the time, and was politically directed against Stalin, whose Red Army was advancing on the Polish capital.
Russian forces watched from across the Vistula river as the Nazis crushed the uprising and only moved into the heart of Warsaw on January 17, 1945, signalling the start of more than four decades of communist rule, during which the uprising was covered up.
Powell, pointing to Poland`s May 1 membership of the European Union and 1999 membership of NATO, promised Warsaw -- a key US ally in Iraq -- would not be left on its own again.
"Poland will never be alone again as it was 60 years ago," he told a news conference.
"The United States will always be with Poland."
At a joint news conference with Powell, Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said Poland had felt betrayed by the lack of help from its western allies, and a deal they struck with Stalin to carve up eastern Europe.
"Big mistakes were made when the three allies (US, Soviet Union, Britain) decided to carve-up Europe," he said, referring to accords struck in Tehran and Yalta.
"They decided on the future of an independent and sovereign country which was fighting with their blood for their future... that should not happen again," he said.
Although the ceremonies, which started on Friday, have been marked with pride and emotion by former resistance fighters and their families, who also laid wreaths on Sunday, they had been dogged by political tensions and recriminations.
But shortly after arriving, a tense-looking Schroeder lost no time in reaching out to Poland to end new tensions hanging over the partners in the European Union and NATO, saying he opposed demands for reparations by ethnic Germans driven out of Poland at the end of World War II.
"The Federal government is opposed to those who want to organise a centre against expulsions (in Berlin) and those who reclaim on their own behalf the restitution of property," he told reporters.
Ahead of the ceremony, tension had also been in the air between Warsaw and wartime ally Britain, which Belka said Saturday should recognise its failure to give more aid to the insurgents.
Many Poles believe that London was partly responsible for the failure of the uprising, for not transporting Free Polish forces in Britain back home to take part in the fighting.
"I don`t think `betrayal` is the right word," Powell said at the news conference with the foreign minister. "There were difficulties in reaching Poland... But not enough help was available or forthcoming from the international community."