The German president bowed his head and asked for forgiveness for the crimes of the Nazis against Poland as he marked the 80th anniversary of the Second World War on Sunday.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke at a ceremony in the small Polish town of Wielun, where the first bombs of the war fell in the early hours of September 1, 1939.

“I bow my head before the victims of the attack on Wielun. I bow my head before the Polish victims of Germany's tyranny. And I ask forgiveness,” President Steinmeier said, speaking in both German and Polish.

“Here began the trail of violence and destruction which was to go through Poland and Europe for six years. We call it war, because we are at a loss to express the horror of those years.”

The ceremony, which was also attended by President Andrzej Duda of Poland, was held at 4.37am, exactly 80 years after the air strikes that started the Second World War.

Mr Steinmeier was speaking in a long tradition of postwar German leaders who have accepted the country’s responsibility for the crimes of the Nazis.

His actions echoed those of Willy Brandt, the former West German chancellor, who famously fell to his knees while visiting a memorial to the dead of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1970 - a moment widely seen as reopening the way to friendly relations.