Poland will require more than $ 1.3 billion from Germany for the invasion during World War II

The leader of the Polish ruling party said on Thursday that Poland will ask 1.3 billion euros to Germany (just over $ 1.3 billion) for historical repairs for the invasion and occupation it carried out during the Second World War.

“This is a significant sum of 6.2 trillion” zlotys (1.3 billion euros), Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the currently ruling law and justice party, said at a conference. process before Poland receives these reparations would be “long and difficult”.

The right-wing government of Poland claims that the country, which was the first casualty of the war, has not been fully compensated from Germany, which is now one of its main partners in the European Union.

Its main leaders, including Kaczynski, the main person in charge of Polish public policy, and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, will participate in the report presentation ceremony at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

It will be the main point of the national anniversary celebrations of the war started on 1 September 1939with the bombing and invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, during more than five years of brutal occupation.

A team of around 30 economists, historians and other experts have been working on the report since 2017. The issue has created bilateral tensions.

War was “one of the most terrible tragedies in our history “President Andrzej Duda said during morning celebrations on the Westerplatte peninsula near Gdansk, one of the first places targeted by the Nazi invasion.

“Not only because it took away our freedom, not only because it took away our state, but also because this war made millions of victims between Polish citizens and irreparable losses for our homeland and our nation, “said Duda.

Germany’s response

In Germany, government official for German-Polish cooperation, Dietmar Nietan, said in a statement that September 1 “remains a day of guilt and shame for Germany that reminds us again and again that we must not forget the crimes committed. from Germany “what are the”darkest chapter of our history“and which still affect bilateral relations.

The reconciliation offered by the Polish people is “the basis on which we can look together to the future in a united Europe”, said Nietan.

The Polish government rejects a 1953 declaration by the country’s then Communist leaders, under pressure from the Soviet Union, in which they promised not to make further claims to Germany.

Germany claims that the compensation has been paid to the Eastern Bloc nations in the post-war years, while the territories lost by Poland to the east when the borders were redrawn were compensated for with some of the pre-war German lands. Berlin considers the matter closed.

An opposition MP, Grzegorz Schetyna, says the report is nothing more than a “game of domestic politics” and insists that Poland needs to build good relations with Berlin.

Some 6 million Polish citizens, including 3 million Jewsthey died in the war and their industry, infrastructure and culture suffered enormous losses.

Source: AP