Poland wants to demand reparations from Germany for losses at the hands of the German occupation during World War II worth about 1.3 trillion euros.

This was announced by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, chairman of the national-conservative governing party PiS, on Thursday in Warsaw.

On the 83rd anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, Kaczynski spoke at the presentation of the report in which a working group of the Polish parliament, supported by 30 scientists from different disciplines, calculated the extent of Polish losses.

Reinhard Veser

Editor in Politics.

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Kaczynski said that the 1.3 trillion euros is a "sum that the German economy can handle and does not burden it excessively".

The federal budget for the current year is around 495 billion euros.

Kaczynski spoke of a "difficult and perhaps long process" to obtain compensation "for everything that the German state, the German people did in the years 1939 to 1945".

Kaczynski portrayed the fact that Poland had not yet made such demands as an oversight: "Rejecting these justified claims would be an expression of a pathological inferiority complex." Such a rejection could only lead to new oppression and new losses.

The event at Warsaw's Royal Castle was attended by leading representatives of the Polish state, including Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Opposition politicians accused Kaczynski that the real reason for the reparation demands was domestic politics.

Szymon Holownia from the Polska 2050 party wrote on Twitter that the PiS was using the millions of victims of the war “cynically and exclusively to retain power”.

The “anti-German agitation is a disgrace” launched by the PiS, wrote Holownia.

The chairman of the liberal-conservative Civic Platform, the largest opposition party, Donald Tusk, also spoke of a partisan campaign.

He does not believe that the government really wants to achieve a result.

Poles are divided on the issue

The Polish population is divided on the issue of reparation claims.

According to a survey published by the newspaper "Rzeczpospolita" on Thursday, 51.1 percent are in favor of demanding financial compensation from Germany for war damage.

41.5 percent do not think this is necessary, 7.5 percent are undecided.

However, 92 percent of supporters of the government camp are in favor of such a demand, while only about a fifth of supporters of the opposition parties are in favor of it.

The PiS has repeatedly called for reparations from Germany since its election victory in autumn 2015, mostly at times when the party's poll numbers were falling, as they are now.

Poland is being hit economically by the consequences of the war in Ukraine.

In addition, the country is in danger of losing part of the 35 billion euros from the EU's Corona reconstruction fund due to the dispute with the EU over the restructuring of its judiciary.

In principle, the EU Commission held out the prospect of disbursing the money after the Polish government made concessions.

The Disciplinary Chamber at the Supreme Court was dissolved.

But Brussels has made it clear that Poland will not receive the funds until all agreed conditions are met,

such as the reinstatement of judges suspended by the Disciplinary Chamber.

So far this has not happened.

Officially, Poland has not yet made any demands for reparations.

The parliamentary working group, on whose report the demand for 1.3 trillion euros is based, was set up in the summer of 2017.

The presentation of her report had been announced and postponed several times in recent years.

Chairman Arkadiusz Mularczyk said the amount was "conservative".

It is well above the 800 billion euros that PiS politicians have repeatedly mentioned in recent years.

The basis for this was a statistic from 1947. When presenting the report, Mularczyk explained that not only direct material damage was included, but also the economic damage resulting from the loss of human life.