Very roughly, if you're 30 years old you remember "shock therapy". If you're 60 years old you remember the Soviet satellite regimes. You have to be 90 years old to remember the Nazis. Of course, the Polish Twins were happy to annoy both Germany and Russia, and in the Czech Republic apart from a President whose only political message is "<insert thing Klaus dislikes> is like Communism" they have an ongoing controversy over the Beneš decrees which are perceived to be a symbolic bulwark against the German "return" you talk about.

In addition, Germany did engage in a fair amount of soul-searching in the 1960's. Perestroika might have led to Russia doing the same about now, except that the result of Perestroika was that the USSR imploded instead, followed by "shock therapy" and a nationalistic backlash.

So while I think the Russian bogeyman is ridiculous, I can understand where the sentiment comes from and how sociologically Marek may well be totally correct that a more cooperative relationship between the enlarged EU and Russia "simply isn't going to happen" "in the short term".

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

The reason the EU can't replace the NATO is exactly the point that people in eastern Europe fear a dominance of Germany, if the biggest ally in their military alliance would be Germany.

Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers

And the Poles by the Soviet one.

Is anyone advocating that the Germans - Austrians repeatedly communicate regret and apology to these nations

The Germans do, and have been doing so for a good several decades now. And guess what, it's worked.