Poland demands $1.3 trillion from Germany for WWII reparations

Poland demands $1.3 trillion from Germany for WWII reparations

According to the leader of the ruling party in Poland, the official demand for reparations will be made to Germany.

Poland estimates its World War II losses to Germany at 6.2 trillion Zlotys ($1.32 Trillion) and announces its intention to demand official reparations from Berlin.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS), made the remarks on Thursday.

This new estimate surpasses the $850bn estimate of a lawmaker from a governing party starting in 2019. Although PiS has repeatedly called for compensation since 2015 when it was elected to power, Poland has not yet requested reparations.

Kaczynski stated that the sum presented was based on the most conservative and limited method possible. He was speaking at a news conference prior to the publication of a long-awaited study about the cost of the country’s years of Nazi German occupation. This report was released as the country marks 83 years since World War II began.

Right-wing politicians in Poland claim that Germany has not fully compensated the country for being the first victim of the war. Germany is now one of its largest partners in the European Union.

It was the focal point of national observances for the anniversary of the war on September 1, 1939. Nazi Germany invaded Poland and bombed it, resulting in more than five years of brutal occupation.

President Andrzej Duba said that the war was “one the most horrible tragedies in our historical history” during Thursday morning’s commemorations at the Westerplatte Peninsula, near Gdansk. This peninsula was one of the first to be attacked by the Nazis invade.

Duda stated that the war took our freedom and took our state away from us. However, this war also caused millions of deaths among Poles and irreparable damage to our homeland as well as our nation.

Germany claims that compensation was paid to the Eastern Bloc countries in the years following the war. However, territories Poland lost in Eastern Europe when its borders were redrawn were made up of some of Germany’s prewar lands. Berlin declares the matter closed.

PiS’s combative stance toward Germany, which is often used to mobilize its constituency has caused tension between Berlin and PiS.

This grew after Russia invaded Ukraine on a full scale. There was criticism about Berlin’s dependence upon Russian gas and slowness in helping Kyiv.

Six million Poles were killed, including three million Polish Jews. Warsaw was also razed to its foundations following an uprising in 1944, which saw about 200,000 civilians die.