Poland estimates the damage done by Nazi Germany to the country during World War II at more than 1.3 trillion (1300 billion) euros. That says chairman Jarosław Kaczynski of the ruling party PiS (Law and Justice). Germany is formally asked to make reparations. The German government previously indicated that it did not want to pay anything.
Today in the Royal Castle of Warsaw the decision is made and announced that Poland will demand reparations. Reparations for everything the Germans did in Poland between 1939 and 1945,” Kaczynski said. He said that on the day the Germans invaded Poland 83 years ago, the war was over in 1939.
A Polish parliamentary committee released a three-part report on the devastation the Nazis wrought in Poland on Thursday. The committee was established in 2017. In Poland, an estimated 6 million people – half of them Jews – died during World War II. Kaczynski believes that Germany has always shirked its responsibility for the Second World War. He also questions a 1953 decision by the then Polish government to waive further war claims. According to Kaczynski, that decision came about under pressure from the Soviet Union, which did not benefit from a quarrel between the then East Germany and neighboring Poland.
Paid nothing
It is not the case that Germany had paid nothing up to that point. Shortly after the war, all foreign German assets and foreign exchange reserves were confiscated. There were also compensations for Nazi victims in various countries. Poland received 255 million euros.
Germany believes that the issue of reparations to Poland has already been settled with previous agreements and previously indicated that it did not want to negotiate compensation. In Poland itself there was also criticism of the mega claim. According to the opposition, the nationalist government mainly uses the claim for its own supporters. If Berlin does not pay, it confirms the stereotype of the bad German and attention and emotions remain focused on its own history.
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