The Polish government chose a historic date for the report: 83 years after the German attack and the start of the Second World War, PiS boss Kaczynski presented a report on the compensation claims to Berlin.
Poland wants to officially demand reparations from Germany for the attack in World War II. The losses are estimated at 6.2 trillion zlotys (1.32 trillion euros), according to the head of the national-conservative governing party PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Warsaw wants to negotiate with Berlin about compensation in this estimated volume. The federal government sees no basis for this.
“The Germans invaded Poland and caused us tremendous damage. The occupation was incredibly criminal, incredibly cruel and had repercussions that in many cases continue to this day,” said Kaczynski, who is considered a strongman in Polish politics. “We cannot go back to business as usual just because it seems to someone that Poland is in a special, radically lower position than other countries.” He was aware that the reparations would be a “long and difficult road”.
The national conservative PiS government, which has led the neighboring country since 2015, has repeatedly raised the issue of compensation payments. In 2017, the PiS set up a parliamentary commission for the report. Poland also founded a research institute for war damage.
According to Arkadiusz Mularczyk, head of the parliamentary commission, 30 experts, including historians, economists and real estate appraisers, were involved in the report. The first volume is more than 500 pages and is divided into nine chapters – calculations of Polish war losses in the areas of demography, economic assessment of human losses and material losses. It is also about the loss of cultural and artistic assets as well as various types of funds, bank accounts and securities.
According to an October poll, 64 percent of Poles polled support demands for reparations for their country’s losses suffered during World War II. The federal government in Berlin rejects any claims for reparations. For them, the question of the two-plus-four treaty on the foreign policy aspects of German unity is closed.
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 – 83 years ago today. It was the beginning of the Second World War with at least 55 million dead – other estimates even go up to 80 million. There are no exact numbers. It is estimated that up to 6 million people lost their lives in Poland alone.
