Poland’s top politician said Thursday that the government will seek the equivalent of some $1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany for the Nazis’ World War II invasion and occupation of his country, AP reports.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice party, announced the huge claim at the release of a long-awaited report on the cost to the country of years of Nazi German occupation as it marks 83 years since the start of World War II.
“We not only prepared the report but we have also taken the decision as to the further steps,” Kaczynski said during the report’s presentation.
“We will turn to Germany to open negotiations on the reparations,” Kaczynski said, adding it will be a “long and not an easy path” but “one day will bring success.”
He insisted the move would serve “true Polish-German reconciliation” that would be based on “truth.”
He claimed the German economy is capable of paying the bill.
Germany argues compensation was paid to East Bloc nations in the years after the war while territories that Poland lost in the East as borders were redrawn were compensated with some of Germany’s pre-war lands. Berlin calls the matter closed.
Germany's Foreign Ministry said Thursday the government’s position remains “unchanged" in that “the question of reparations is concluded.”
“Poland long ago, in 1953, waived further reparations and has repeatedly confirmed this waiver,” the ministry said in an emailed response to an Associated Press query about the new Polish report.
“This is a significant basis for today’s European order. Germany stands by its responsibility for World War II politically and morally.”
Poland’s right-wing government argues that the country which was the war’s first victim has not been fully compensated by neighboring Germany, which is now one of its major partners within the European Union.
"Germany has never really accounted for its crimes against Poland,“ Kaczynski said, claiming that many Germans who committed war crimes lived in impunity in Germany after the war.
Top leaders including Kaczynski, who is Poland’s chief policy maker, and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki attended the ceremonial release of the report at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, rebuilt from wartime ruins.
The release of the three-volume report was the focus of national observances of the anniversary of the war that began Sep. 1, 1939, with Nazi Germany’s bombing and invasion of Poland that was followed by more than five years of brutal occupation.
The head of the report team, lawmaker Arkadiusz Mularczyk, said it was impossible to place a financial value on the loss of some 5.2 million lives he blamed on the German occupation.
He listed losses to the infrastructure, industry, farming, culture, deportations to Germany for forced labor and efforts to turn Polish children into Germans.
