Poland wants to receive more than $1.5 trillion in war reparations from Germany
Berlin must pay war reparations to Warsaw in the amount of more than 6.2 trillion zlotys (more than $1.5 trillion as of 2021) for the wrongs caused during the Second World War.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) party, said this during the report presentation on the losses suffered by Poland due to aggression and German occupation during the Second World War, Ukrinform reports.
As Kaczynski noted, the amount by which Poland estimates the losses caused by Germany during the war years was determined by a "conservative method, and it can be significantly increased."
"This is a very serious amount – 6 trillion 200 billion zlotys. But from Germany's point of view and taking into account the fact that this kind of compensation has been paid for decades, and France's compensation for the First World War was completed about ten years ago, this amount is quite possible for the German economy, and it will not significantly burden it, Kaczynski said.
The leader of PiS specified that this report does not exclude losses caused to Poland during the war years by the Soviet aggressor.
The head of the expert group that prepared the report, PiS deputy Arkadiusz Mularczyk, noted that more than 30 specialists worked on it – economists, archivists, historians, property appraisers, etc. The report consists of three volumes:
- An assessment of material and non-material losses caused by Germany to Poland during the war years
- Photo documentation of the crimes of the Nazis
- A catalog listing the crimes of the Germans in Poland
Mulyarczyk noted that in terms of US dollars, as of 2021, the total amount of reparations that Poland will demand from Germany is $1 trillion 532 billion 170 million. The most significant part of this amount is the estimated loss of life of 5.2 million Polish citizens (over $900 billion) and the country's infrastructure (over $170 billion).
For the first time, Poland announced its intention to apply to Germany for the payment of war reparations in 2017. At that time, a group was created in the Sejm of Poland to assess the losses caused to the country by the German aggressor during the Second World War.
On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland, marking World War II's beginning. Subsequently, on September 17, 1939, according to the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR attacked Poland from the east.
