The Second World War resurfaces in relations between Poland and Germany. The head of Polish diplomacy Radoslaw Sikorski called on Tuesday for “financial compensation” from Berlin for the atrocities of the Nazis, echoing the demands for reparations from the previous government in Warsaw.
Radoslaw Sikorski, in office since mid-December within the new pro-European Polish government, made his first visit to Berlin since taking office to meet his counterpart Annalena Baerbock.
A previous assessment at 1,300 billion euros
Interviewed by German television Welt TV, after his meeting with Annalena Baerbock, on the question of reparations demanded by the previous conservative nationalist government for the horrors of the Nazis, the head of diplomacy first noted: “what Germany did to Poland during the Second World War was terrible and cruel.” It would be helpful if Germany “finds a creative way to express this suffering, to express regret and to do something good for the people who survived this period”, he added. “And this ethical reflection on the past should then result in financial compensation,” he continued without specifying the amount of this compensation.
The question of reparations had poisoned already very tense relations between Berlin and the previous Polish government, which estimated the sum to be paid by Germany at one thousand three hundred billion euros.
Germany considers that Poland renounced war reparations in 1953 and confirmed this renunciation on several occasions. Berlin opposed the same arguments to requests for reparations raised in the past by Greece and Italy.