Warsaw demands a “permanent, full and final legal and material settlement of the consequences of German aggression and occupation of 1939-1945”.
Poland’s Foreign Minister announced on Monday, October 3, that his country wants to start negotiations with Germany over World War II reparations, estimated by Warsaw at 1,300 billion euros.
Minister Zbigniew Rau told the press on Monday that he had signed a diplomatic note in which he “expressed the conviction (…) that the parties will take immediate steps towards a permanent, full and final legal and material settlement of the consequences of the German Must undertake aggression and occupation 1939-1945″. The note must be sent to German diplomatic chief Annalena Baerbock, who is expected in Warsaw on Monday evening and is due to meet Zbigniew Rau on Tuesday.
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According to Zbigniew Rau, this settlement should in particular include “the payment of compensation by the Federal Republic of Germany for material and immaterial losses that the Polish state incurs as a result of this aggression and this occupation”.
According to the minister, this regulation should also include the payment of compensation to the victims of Nazi aggression and their family members, as well as a systematic solution to the issue of confiscated Polish cultural property and archival documents.
“Founding Polish-German Relations on Justice and Truth”
“Such a settlement will allow Polish-German relations to be based on justice and truth, will bring to a close painful chapters of the past and ensure further development of bilateral relations in the spirit of good neighborliness and friendly cooperation,” he said, reiterating Zbigniew Rough. In a report published on September 1, Warsaw put its losses during World War II at PLN 6.2 trillion (EUR 1,300 billion).
Of this total, “a very important part is compensation for the deaths of more than 5.2 million Polish citizens,” stressed Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, adding that the process until receiving these compensations is ongoing through Poland “would be long and difficult”. According to Germany, Poland waived war indemnities in 1953 and has repeatedly confirmed this waiver.
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Berlin used the same arguments to counter the reparations claims made by Greece in the past. For the Polish liberal opposition, the war reparations debate revived by the conservatives a year before the parliamentary elections is primarily devoted to domestic political ends.
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