Die Tageszeitung (Taz), one of Germany's leading left-wing papers, ran a satirical article on June 26 under the headline "Poland's new potato," which made fun of Polish President Lech Kaczynski's aversion to all things German. All the president knew of Germany was "the spittoon in the men's toilet at Frankfurt airport," the paper suggested, adding: "It is well known that he boasted for decades never to have extended even a fingernail towards a German politician."

The president pulled out of a top-level meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac last Monday saying he had "stomach pains." He denied speculation that he had withdrawn because of the article, which he described as "disgusting."

His twin brother Jaroslav, speaking days before he is to take office as Poland's new prime minister, turned the matter into a diplomatic spat by saying relations between Poland and Germany would remain strained until the German government acted against the paper. "It is up to our partners now to improve relations. We aren't the ones who insulted someone," Kaczynski was quoted as saying by the weekly Wprost paper. "An insult to a head of state is a crime and there must be consequences." Germany's chancellery has responded that it doesn't comment on matters of press freedom.

Unsurprisingly, German newspaper commentators on Tuesday aren't impressed by the Kaczynskis' reaction. Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: "Kaczynski has evidently not yet realized that the whole world is amused by the stir this has caused in Poland. And most Poles find it just embarrassing. Virtually the whole of Warsaw's press has urged the rulers to let the matter lie. What is Kaczynski going to do when Berlin doesn't apologize? Because it's obviously not up to governments to judge satire. Will Warsaw demand the extradition of the author of the satire, who according to Kaczynski has committed a crime? How does he propose to pressure Berlin? And how does he plan to pressure Brussels into taking more account of Poland's national interests than before?" writes the paper. "He has no leverage. Maybe he'll suffer the worst thing than can happen to a nationalist Pole: his demands will be met with simple head-shaking. At the moment the future Polish premier looks like someone who is uncontrolled, who doesn't know the basic rules of diplomacy and has a problem with press freedom. He's not doing any favors for his country, which he wants 'to improve and return to health' -- an honorable and necessary desire. Being offended is no substitute for constructive politics."

Conservative Die Welt writes: "Democracy isn't in danger; but with their erratic 'circle the wagons' mentality in domestic and foreign policy the Kacynski brothers are making it hard for people in and outside Poland to assess their aims. With a constant attitude of being offended they won't do any one any favors, least of all themselves."

Business daily Financial Times Deutschland writes: "At no time since 1989 has a (Polish) government leader started with such a low confidence rating as Jaroslav Kaczynski, appointed yesterday, twin brother to Lech Kaczynski." Just 21 percent of Poles think the new Prime Minister is a good choice, according to a survey."It's an unease shared abroad, and for good reason." The conservative Kaczynski brothers stand for a "strictly conservative national view of the world, for resentment against Germany and a utilitarian stance towards Europe. Concerned Polish commentators are already speaking of 'Kaczism'." Germany should be worried, because relations between the two countries had improved and even turned to friendship over the last 60 years, writes the paper. "Now a satire is blown up into an affair of state. The paper argues there's more to this than the offended reaction of an over-sensitive politician. The Polish government, which likes to play the protector of human rights in its dealings with Russia, is showing increasingly authoritarian tendencies. Press freedom and divergent opinions are a nuisance to them as they pursue their aims. The Kaczynski government is increasingly installing compliant people in the big state-run companies, big privatizations have been stopped. This government measures it relations with the EU in terms of how Poland can in the short term derive the maximum material gain from its membership. "Poland is thereby isolating itself, to its own detriment and that of Europe. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Poland was one of the countries that responded most quickly and successfully to the opening. It would be a shame if the twin brothers succeeded in turning the clock back," opines the FTD.

SPIEGEL ONLINE columnist Claus Christian Malzahn writes that the Kaczynskis don't appear to be interested in good relations with Germany. "They aren't prepared to accept the modern political standards of the European Union. The political convictions of the Kaczynskis are rooted in national Catholicism and in deep-seated skepticism about Germany. And they have derived a problematic myth of victimhood from Poland's undeniable role as victim which started with the first partition of the country in 1772 and didn't end until 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet empire," writes Malzahn.

"The resons for this lie mainly in the disaster of National Socialism and World War II. There is no reason for Germans to mock the Kaczynskis' values just for the fun of it. After all, these Kaczynskis as activists for Solidarnosc in the 1980s did more for freedom in central and eastern Europe than many of their current critics. But there are many reasons for regretting that Poland's political leadership evidently doesn't want to arrive in the Europe for which they went on strike and fought all those years ago in Gdansk. On the contrary. The Kaczynskis have been using every excuse, however silly, to march back into the dusty old nation state in which even the Virgin Mary has a Polish passport and historical myths are still more important than historical science."

"The tough Kaczynskis came to power because Poland was suffering from corruption the way some African states suffer Malaria. That's one reason why Poles place much more faith in European democracy than they do in their national institutions," he writes. "When the Poles notice that the Kaczynskis are no longer fighting the mafia but western freedoms, the brothers will land in the graveyard of Polish history. The Poles -- the most cosmopolitan people of our continent -- are very well aware that their future lies in Europe. The Kaczynskis wouldn't be the first politicians in post-Communist Warsaw to enjoy a meteoric rise followed by a steep fall, only to end up forgotten."