Author: Vassilia Orfanou, PhD, Post Doc
Headline Diplomat eMagazine
Poland’s foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau signed an official, diplomatic note requesting around €1.3 trillion in damages from Germany incurred by occupying Nazi Germans during World War II. What’s behind the claim? Check here.
Rau’s announcement came before the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock that visited Poland to take part in German Unity Day Celebrations at the Germany Embassy in Warsaw. For Germany, the case is already closed. So whose is in the right?
What does Poland want?
Warsaw says that payment of reparations would strengthen bilateral relations via truth and justice and would help close painful chapters from the past. On the contrary, Germany insists that it settled the issue through the Two-plus-Four Treaty of 1990. Reparations could have been addressed then. But the issue never came up. At the time, Poland wanted to secure united Germany’s confirmation of the post-war border. Such validation from Germany to Poland was indeed necessary, which was equally and most probably the reasoning behind not mentioning reparations at the time.
“{The note} expresses the position of the Polish minister of foreign affairs that the parties should take immediate steps to permanently and effectively… settle the issue of the consequences of German aggression and occupation,” Rau said in a news conference in the Capital Warsaw.
Poland’s foreign minister, Rau called for a “final” and “durable” resolution between Warsaw and Berlin on the issue of the German occupation of Poland between 1935 and 1945, Polish news agency PAP reported.
According to Poland’s ruling nationalist law and justice (PiS) party, they estimated that Berlin owed Poland 6.2 trillion zlotys ($1.26 trillion, €1.29). PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said that the amount was arrived at using a “conservative” method and that Warsaw could ask for more.
While Berlin claims to have settled the issue in 1990, PiS argues that the consensus is invalid because Warsaw was not able to negotiate fair compensation. This is because, in 1953, Poland’s socialist leaders renounced all claims to war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union. Moscow wanted to free East Germany from any liabilities.
What is Poland claiming?
Warsaw says that 6 million Polish citizens, including 3 million of the country’s Jews, were killed during World War II. Furthermore, Poland’s Capital Warsaw was destroyed by Nazi forces after the 1944 Warsaw uprising. Aside from German reparation, Warsaw also requires solving the problem of looted artworks, archives, and bank deposits.
Rau cited that Berlin should make efforts to enlighten German society about the “true” picture of the war and its catastrophic effects on Poland.
In light of the matter, Baerbock, German Foreign Minister said in Berlin before visiting Warsaw that the two European neighbors and partners have a “responsibility to preserve the trust we have built together over the past 30 years.” She added, “That includes the coming to terms with and remembering the immeasurable suffering that Germany brought upon the people of Poland.”
In a statement during the anniversary of Germany’s reunification, Baerbock said that the country “acknowledges the contribution brave polish people made.” She added, “We know these days, Europe is stronger when it stands together.”
“The question of reparations is, as you know, concluded from the German government’s point of view,” She added at a news conference. And the reality is that despite that the issue was brought in the Parliament in 2004, the government shut it down. Until 2015 – that’s when the nationalist Law and Justice party came to power and government control, calls for reparations became louder and louder culminating in the present official demands. Critics say that this is a result of domestic politics, while there is no legal path for reparations.
At the same time and despite the necessity to acknowledge and repair the Polish Pain, there may be a reasoning behind such reparation in the form of renewing European values that will enhance their cooperation in trade and other venues, serving to create more stability and addressing together the current issues at hand and not create an atmosphere of resentment due to past.
Still, it is worth noting that Germany has previously and equally declined a similar request for World War II reparations from Greece’s government, which may also be the reason why such claims cannot be honoured in one country vs. another. A precedent in one country would surely create a reason for another to make the same claim. If you ask me, all such claims are valid, but they are also surely politicised during election time or during a crucial time that emotive communications are needed to pull the people in from a patriot’s standing. To make the matter worse, why no and not then? Why not 10 0r 20 years back, but now?
At the same time, clearing standing by the people and for the people, such reparations should indeed be acknowledged and countries should be paid in the now and based on actual actions that do no hinder geopolitics, but rather and still create unity between two countries moving forward within the context of the EU.
But from a Greek standpoint, for sure Greece should re-demand Second World War reparations from Germany.
In the 1960s, Germany signed off a treaty with the Greek government to compensate Greek victims of Nazi German terror which added up to the 115 million German mark. However, these payments were meant for the victims and were not supposed to be a general reparation treaty. Later on, the Greek government insisted that this was only a down payment and that more payments had to be made.
In 2021, the government in Athens revived its demand for talks with Germany on wartime reparations before the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Greece by German troops in World War II.
Speaking to the German news agency DPA, Alexandrios Papaioannou Greek Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, “The question remains open until our demands are met. These demands are valid and active, and they will be asserted by any means.”
Greece last made an official call for negotiations in 2019, under leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. In 2020, the current Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that Athens still considers the issue open, even though it has held back from pressuring Berlin on the issue.
According to a Greek parliamentary commission, they estimate the cost of damage caused by Nazi Germany in Greece during the war to be around €289 billion. That amount also features a loan that Greece was forced to give to the German central bank.
Conclusion
Both countries, Poland and Greece alike should seek and demand reparations from Germany. But the monetary means should come in the form of investment and trade to the two countries and possibly by enhancing their collaboration and unity, rather than their division and conquering that may indeed inflict on future repercussions for the forthcoming generations.
A balance should be stricken between what is owed to the people that have indeed suffered inseparable amounts of pain, agony, torment vs. using such by politicians to make various concessions and seal their election.
indeed, It is never too late to rightfully give to the people what they deserve, if this means to accelerate their well-being, but surely not being played once again by politicians with their only interest being to get re-elected and use such pain to their advantage.
Most certainly, both countries should remain strong and seek truth and justice, where both are due, but for all the right reasons and with the necessary justification. For the most part, a decision should be justify the current progress that still needs to be cleared in the now, specifically creating the necessary environment that will enhance the unification, cooperation and growth of these three countries and surely preventing conflicts, wars, and an economic downturn that would still be the result that the people would have to suffer as a result.
Featured photo: dilara irem, Pexels
