The leader of the party in power in Poland announced this Thursday that the Polish government will claim 1.36 billions of euros to Germany for damages inflicted on his country during World War II.
Warsaw will require Germany to “negotiate these reparations”, the president of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jaroslaw Kaczinski, said at a press conference, admitting that the road to achieve it will be “long and difficult”.
The leader of the PiS, a conservative formation nationalist, made these statements during a conference dedicated to the presentation of a report on the losses of Poland during the Second World War (1917-1945). Since coming to power in 1989, the PiS has often highlighted the question of reparations. Work on the report started in 2017.
Berlin: Poland renounced reparations
“The Germans invaded Poland and did us enormous damage. The occupation was incredibly criminal, incredibly cruel and caused effects that in many cases continue to this day”, he added.
However, according to Germany, Poland renounced the war reparations from East Germany in 1953, something that conservatives Poles question. East Germany was left under the Soviet orbit (as was Poland) after the world conflict, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the reunification of Germany the following year.
“Germany has not paid war crimes”
Kaczinski stressed that many countries in the world received compensation, even small, while Poland has received nothing. Germany, according to the leader, has not paid for its war crimes against Poland, nor did it actively seek to punish Nazi war criminals.
Arkadiusz Mularczyk, responsible for the preparation of the report, said that the result of Nazi Germany’s activities during World War II halved Poland’s ability to create wealth.
“All the partial values of the demographic and material losses of Poland together give the sum of 6,109,609 trillions zloty (approximately 1. billions of euros). Calculated in dollars, with the exchange rate at the end of 2021, it is equal to $1 ,207,100 millions,” said Mularczyk.
Warsaw: “A realistic sum”
According to Kaczinski, the sum indicated in the report is conservative and could be much higher. “It is a large sum, but considering that war reparations are paid for decades, the German economy will be able to handle it. It will not be a great burden, and we can say that it is realistic, ”said the leader of the nationalist Law and Justice.
The current report consists of 3 volumes. The first contains an estimate of Poland’s material and non-material losses during the war, the second contains photographic documentation of the atrocities committed by the Nazis, and the third volume lists all the crimes committed by the Nazis in Poland during World War II.
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