Poland’s prime minister said on Saturday the government will send a diplomatic note to Germany calling on Berlin to enter the negotiations process over Polish claims for reparations for World War II.
Mateusz Morawiecki added that Warsaw would seek compensation on all forums and through all possible means.
On Thursday, the government presented a report on Poland’s war losses, which concluded that Germany owes Poland EUR 1.31 trillion in reparations.
“I think and believe deeply that every sensible Pole, everyone who knows the history of Poland, the history of the Second World War and what happened after that war, realises it cannot be that the victim of the greatest German war crimes, the Republic of Poland, our citizens… We lost in terms of our economic potential and the number of the population, the most people as a result of German murders, above all German,” Morawiecki said in an interview with state television. “In connection with that, it is obvious to me that we must demand reparations.”
Morawiecki added that if more Poles familiarised themselves with the report, they would come to the same conclusion.
In 1953, Poland relinquished all claims to war reparations from Germany under pressure from the Soviet Union, which sought to free its new satellite country, East Germany, from any burden. The current Polish government says the 1953 agreement is invalid as Poland was not a fully sovereign country at that time. Germany says the case of war reparations for Poland is closed.
The prime minister said the legal aspect needed to be clarified and that Warsaw had never waived its right to compensation, but that such a move was made by erstwhile communist-era prime minister Boleslaw Bierut, whom Morawiecki described as a “Soviet agent” and made the point that no documents to that effect existed at the UN.
Morawiecki argued that for relations to be “exemplary” between Warsaw and Berlin, reparations are necessary as otherwise there would be a huge injustice hampering them.