Poland’s government is to form an Institute of War Losses (Instytut Strat Wojennych) that will focus on the damage caused to the country by German and Soviet occupation in the Second World War.
The ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), has long argued that Poland is still owed huge amounts in reparations, from Germany in particular. The Nazi-German occupation resulted in millions of deaths, the almost complete destruction of many cities, as well as large-scale looting of art and other cultural heritage.
But Berlin has rejected such claims, arguing that Poland renounced its right to reparations in the 1950s. Russia last year said “it should be Poland paying us for liberating them”, referring to the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 (six years after Stalin and Hitler had divided Poland between them).
Over two years ago, PiS claimed that a parliamentary committee it had established to calculate how much Germany still owes Poland had completed its report. Its chairman, Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a PiS MP, suggested that the bill could amount to $850 billion. Yet since then, the report has remained unpublished.
Nevertheless, the government now plans to set up an institute dedicated to the issue. “Thanks to [Prime Minister] Morawiecki, an Institute of War Losses will be established,” tweeted Mularczyk on Saturday, saying that it would “carry out further work on the [financial] balance of the German and Soviet occupation during WWII.”
Speaking to Polska Times, the MP said that the institute would bring together experts to research, document, analyse and present information relating to war losses. He likened it to Israel’s Yad Vashem, which commemorates and researches the Holocaust.
.@arekmularczyk o reparacjach wojennych: Niemcy wiedzą, że roszczenia będą zgłoszonehttps://t.co/LwEWWj3mGI
— Polska Times (@polska_times) October 23, 2021
Critics, however, have suggested that the plans are simply an effort to further draw out what they see as a political exercise rather than a genuine attempt to seek reparations from Germany.
“So PiS is withdrawing from the idea of reparations (doomed from the beginning) but, to cover that up, it is creating an institution that will employ a few greedy people,” tweeted legal scholar Wojciech Sadurski. “The taxpayer pays for their stupidity.”
Even a fellow MP from Poland’s ruling national-conservative coalition responded to Mularczyk’s announcement with surprise. “It has been six years since Poles were promised a legal battle for reparations from Germany,” tweeted Janusz Kowalski. “When will Poland officially submit a diplomatic note to Germany?”
Mularczyk himself admitted last month that the decision on publishing the final report on estimated German war damages “will be related to the political decisions of the party leadership and the government”, notes wPolityce.
Minęło właśnie 6 lat od złożenia milionom Polaków zobowiązania o rozpoczęciu prawnej batalii w sprawie reparacji od Niemiec.
Konsekwentnie będę pytał KIEDY Polska oficjalnie złoży Niemcom w sprawie reparacji notę dyplomatyczną. Dopiero po złożeniu noty – kolejne działania.
— Janusz Kowalski (@JKowalski_posel) October 23, 2021
Mularczyk’s Parliamentary Group for the Estimation of Compensation Due to Poland from Germany for Damages Caused During World War II was established in 2017, two years after PiS returned to power.
The next year, Mularczyk announced that estimated losses to the Polish state caused by Nazi Germany’s invasion and occupation in 1939-45 stood at $850 billion. In May 2019, Mularczyk announced that the committee’s “report is ready” and that he wanted it to be made public on 1 September that year – the 80th anniversary of the German invasion.
However, after that did not happen, Mularczyk said on 2 September 2019 that work was still underway on “proofreading and translating” the report. Two years later, on the same date last month, government spokesman Piotr Müller announced that “work relating to the details of the report is just being completed”.
Germany owes Poland over $850 billion in WW2 reparations: senior lawmaker https://t.co/k9AUq8GRCn pic.twitter.com/laMYkvjwkX
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 26, 2019
Also speaking last month, Mularczyk told the Wprost weekly that the formation of a new ruling coalition in Germany makes this a good time to raise the issue of reparations. He noted that “both the Greens and the Free Democratic Party are groups with which there is a possibility of dialogue on this matter”.
Last year, a Green MP, Manuel Sarrazin, who is chairman of the German-Polish parliamentary group in the Bundestag, argued that, while the German government’s position against reparations 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.
Sarrazin suggested extending compensation 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, reported Polish state broadcaster TVP.
Soon after, however, Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said during a visit to Poland that “the federal government has not changed its position in relation to this recurring debate over reparations”.
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.
Main image credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1996-057-10A / Schremmer (under BY-SA 3.0 DE)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
