German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier gives a speech during a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the World War II, in Wielun on September 1, 2019 | Alik Replicz/AFP via Getty Images German president asks for Polish forgiveness at World War II commemoration Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his counterpart Andrzej Duda mark the 80th anniversary of the war’s outbreak on Sunday.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asked for Poland's forgiveness as he marked the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II on Sunday.

Speaking at a ceremony in the Polish town of Wieluń, where the first German bombs fell, Steinmeier said "far too few" Germans knew the town's history today.

Alternating between German and Polish, he continued: "I bow before the Polish victims of German tyranny. And I ask for your forgiveness."

Steinmeier was joined by Poland's President Andrzej Duda, who described his German counterpart as someone "who has come with humility, with his head bowed, to pay homage ... to share the pain."

The two leaders observed a minute's silence at the ceremony, which began at 4:40 a.m., the moment 80 years ago when the first bombs rained down on the town's civilians. Some 6 million Polish citizens would die over the course of World War II.

Also on Sunday morning, Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans marked the war's outbreak at a ceremony in Westerplatte, a peninsula where Nazi German forces attacked a Polish military base 80 years ago.

Timmermans, who is Dutch, in his speech praised "the incredible sacrifices by Polish soldiers ... who fought for six years to bring liberty to all of us."

He added: "I say this in gratitude on behalf of the European Commission and the European Union as a whole. But I also say this on behalf of the Dutch nation which was liberated, in part, by Polish soldiers."

Later on Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will attend a ceremony in the capital Warsaw.

Pence stepped in for President Donald Trump, who cancelled his trip to Poland in order to stay in the country while a hurricane heads for Florida and Georgia.

This article was updated.