Germany donates €60 million for Auschwitz preservation but rejects Polish war reparation demands

During a visit to Poland, Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, has signed an agreement to provide €60 million of extra funding to help maintain the site of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Maas, however, continued to reject Polish demands for war reparations from Germany. But a German MP has criticised this position, calling it “morally unacceptable” and appealing to his government to offer compensation. One Polish MP calls the development a “breakthrough”.

“German responsibility will never come to an end”

The German government’s new donation, which had been promised by Chancellor Angela Merkel during a visit to the former camp in December, comes at a critical moment for the Auschwitz Museum.

Over 60% of its budget derives from revenue the museum generates itself, mostly through visitors to the site, whose numbers reached a record 2.3 million last year. But the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the closures of museums and borders, has caused such revenue to dry up.

The museum, which will remain closed until the end of this month, recently appealed to the public for donations to allow it to continue its educational, research and other projects.

Germany’s donation – which comes from both the federal authorities and the Länder (states) – will go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which was set up 11 years ago with a primary mission to support conservation work at the site of the former camp.

Its activities has been financed by 38 countries and individual donors. At the start, Germany supported the foundation with €60 million, and it has now doubled that. Poland has given the foundation €10 million. The Polish state additionally provides most of the Auschwitz Museum’s direct public funding.

“The activities of the foundation are extremely important. That is why we are supporting them”, said Maas. He went on to say that the support is a continuation of what Germany has been doing for years as a consequence of its past actions.

“German responsibility resulting from Nazism and the Holocaust will never come to an end”, declared Maas.

Upon signing the agreement, Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz Museum, stressed how significant this moment was for both Poland and Germany.

“It has been 75 years since the war and I believe we have reached the time when we can seek out historical figures that could be our common Polish-German heroes of the Second World War,” said Cywiński, suggesting Otto Kuesel as one candidate.

Kuesel was an early German prisoner of the camp who helped his fellow inmates, most of whom were Poles. In December 1942, he escaped the camp along with three Polish prisoners.

Auschwitz was originally created in German-occupied Poland as a camp for mainly Polish prisoners. Later, from 1942, Jews became by far the largest group of victims, most being killed in gas chambers immediately upon arrival.

A “breakthrough” on war reparations?

The German foreign minister’s visit to Poland, the first since the start of the pandemic, was hailed by German media as demonstrating a “rare consensus of opinions” between Maas and his Polish counterpart, Jacek Czaputowicz. Yet one area where differences remained was over war reparations.

“In relation to this recurring debate over reparations, the federal government has not changed its position”, stated Maas, quoted by TVP. Germany has repeatedly rejected Polish demands for compensation.

The German minister was, however, put in a somewhat uncomfortable position as, just before his visit, Manuel Sarrazin, a German Green MP, appealed to his government to soften its position on paying reparations to Poland.

Sarrazin, who is chairman of the German-Polish parliamentary group in the Bundestag, argued that, while the German government’s position may be legally correct, it is “morally and politically unacceptable”.

“Germany cannot consider the debate to be over if it is not over for our Polish partners and friends, who were the first victims of the German attack,” said Sarrazin, quoted by Deutsche Welle.

Speaking in the Bundestag, Manuel Sarrazin suggested extending compensations for Poland and creating funds for victims, as well as supporting Polish cultural institutions and providing symbolic reparations to Polish cities where Germans committed war crimes, reports TVP Info.

German broadsheet Die Welt wrote that this initiative may well resonate in Poland, especially during the last days of presidential campaign.

“The ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), may use it to mobilise its electorate,” wrote the newspaper, added that, while Sarrazin is not proposing to accept Polish demands for hundreds of billions of euros, his proposals are unprecedented.

Poland’s PiS government has repeatedly declared its desire for Germany to pay reparations for the destruction it caused in Poland during the Second World War. Polling indicates that a majority of the public support such claims too.

In May last year, a parliamentary committee set up by PiS to calculate the amount of money owed by Germany to Poland announced that it had finished its work. Its chairman, Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a PiS MP, suggested that the bill could amount to $850 billion. Yet since then, the report has remained unpublished.

In January, in an interview for German tabloid Bild, Kaczyński said that Poland will never accept the fact that Germany has not paid reparations. However, he refused to comment on the rumours that Poland will expect $850 billion.

Germany has argued that Poland renounced its claim to reparations in 1954. But Mularczyk claims that there is no document providing a legal basis for this position. Others note that Poland, with its Soviet-backed communist government, was not a truly independent state at that time.

Mularczyk welcomed Sarrazin’s calls for Germany to reconsider its position on reparations. “It’s a breakthrough,” said the PiS MP. “For the first time German politicians in Bundestag are saying that reparations are an issue politically and morally open.”

Main image credit: Master Man/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)

Agnieszka Wądołowska

Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna