Poland may demand WW2 reparations from Germany

Poland is looking into demanding reparations from Germany for the massive losses inflicted on the country during the Second World War, an official said.

The Polish parliament’s research office is preparing an analysis of whether to make the claim and will have it ready by August 11, said Arakadiusz Mularczyk, a politician with the ruling Law and Justice party.

The step comes after Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s most powerful politician, said in a recent interview that the “Polish government is preparing itself for a historical counteroffensive”.

“We are talking here about huge sums, and also about the fact that Germany for many years refused to take responsibility for the Second World War,” Mr Kaczynski, who is the leader of the conservative ruling party, told Radio Maryja last week.

The massive suffering inflicted on Poland has been a topic of public discussion recently as the country marked the anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 on Tuesday.

The doomed revolt against the Nazi German occupying forces resulted in the killing of 200,000 Poles and the near total destruction of Warsaw.

Amid the observances, defence minister Antoni Macierewicz said Germans need to “pay back the terrible debt they owe to the Polish people”.

The Second World War, which began with the German invasion of Poland in 1939, killed nearly six million Polish citizens and wrought huge material loss on the country, including the destruction of churches and other cultural treasures and entire cities.

Mr Kaczynski also called for reparations from Germany when he was prime minister more than a decade ago, creating some tensions between Poland and Germany, which are important trade partners and allies in Nato and the European Union.

Germany has paid billions of euros over the years in compensation for Nazi crimes, primarily to Jewish survivors, and acknowledges the country’s responsibility for keeping alive the memory of Nazi atrocities and atoning for them.

Poland’s former communist government said it would not make claims on Germany.

Mr Macierewicz said on Tuesday that the communist-era Poland was a “Soviet puppet state” whose decision is not legally valid today.