Poland estimated its World War II losses caused by Germany at 6.2 trillion zlotys, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling ruling party, said at a conference on Thursday. dedicated to the presentation of a report on the Polish damage in the conflict.
The amount is equivalent to approximately one third of the annual Gross Domestic Product of Germany, the fourth largest economy in the world. Kaczynski said he will demand that Berlin negotiate compensation.
“The sum that was presented was adopted using the most limited and conservative method, it would be possible to increase it,” said Kaczynski.
Of this total, a significant part is compensation for the deaths of more than 5.2 million Polish citizens, added Kaczynski, admitting that the path to reparation will be long and difficult.
Poland’s biggest trading partner, neighboring Germany, claimed on another occasion that all financial claims related to World War II have now been resolved.
Poland’s new estimate surpasses the previous one of $850 billion made by a ruling party lawmaker in 2019. Since taking power in 2015, Law and Justice (PiS) has repeated claims for damages several times.
PiS has invoked the theme of German occupation as part of its efforts to promote patriotism and fight accusations that Poles were also perpetrators of crimes against Jews during the war. This Thursday’s combative stance strained relations with Berlin.
According to the report, 2.1 million citizens were deported for forced labor in Nazi Germany. Each of them worked an average of two years and nine months. After the war, and due to medical experiments and detentions in concentration camps, 590,000 Poles were disabled.
Between 1939 and 1945, Poland lost 50% of its lawyers, 40% of its doctors and 35% of its university professors.
In 1953, Poland’s then communist rulers renounced all claims for war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union, which wanted to rid East Germany, a Soviet satellite like Poland, of any responsibility.
PiS now argues that the deal is invalid because Warsaw failed to negotiate fair compensation.
“The position of the German government remains unchanged: the issue of reparations is closed,” said a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry. “Poland renounced further reparations a long time ago, in 1953, and has since confirmed this repeatedly.”
Donald Tusk, leader of Poland’s largest opposition party, the Civic Platform, said on Thursday that Kaczynski’s announcement was not about reparations. “This is an internal political campaign to rebuild support for the ruling party.”
PiS still leads in most opinion polls, but its lead over Civic Platform has waned in recent months amid criticism of its handling of rising inflation and the economic slowdown.
