Wouldn't you think that somewhere else there would be confirmation that he made this claim? To say he is and always has been a company man is an understatement.
Order of Lenin | Soviet award
Two transcripts collected from another site where other Polish Speakers responded to this exact same video both confirm Cosmonaut Miroslaw Hermaczewski is making fun of the Flat Earth hypothesis.
Source.
Cosmonaut Miroslaw Hermaczewski allegedly says earth is flat - [joke]
I speak Polish and listened to the entire interview. In my opinion General Hermaszewski is quite obviously joking. There are a few other things that he says in this interview that people have seemed to have conveniently ignored and just focused on the last flat earth question.
At around
11:30, the interviewer ask when was the first time that the General felt weightless and he responds by saying:
There he mentions two concepts that don't really fit into the flat earth model. The General then continues describing his flight and at around
12:20 says:
He actually also makes a gesture with his hand showing the curvature (
12:26). Then starting at
15:57, the interviewer asks if the General has seen any UFOs during his whole career as a pilot and cosmonaut. He responds by saying:
He then cracks a smile and laughs.
There are also a couple instances where the General needs to correct the interviewer regarding his training (on gliders), and the name of the commander of his space flight. He doesn't seem to be overly impressed by the caliber of questions and the preparedness of the interviewer.
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I also speak fluent Polish. This was an interview with a celebrated Pole, a general, and the (so far) only astronaut of Polish origin. The interview is him talking about his experiences in space, in orbit, around the globe. At the end, there is a comedy "...and finally". The interviewer feeds him a pre-planned question about "flat earth", the General feigns surprise, but volunteers that "It's flat". In the context of the interview, it makes for a hilarious ending, as well as good-naturedly poking fun at flat earth believers. The incongruity of discussing being an astronaut in orbit for half an hour and then saying it's flat makes it laugh-out-loud funny.