Majority of Poles want government to seek war reparations from Germany

A large majority of people in Poland want their country to seek reparations from Germany for the Second World War, a new poll has found.

The findings, which echo the results of previous surveys, come days after Prime Minister Donald Tusk indicated, following a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, that his government would not continue the push for reparations started under the previous administration.

The poll – by SW Research for Rzeczpospolita, a leading daily newspaper, and published on Saturday – found that 58% of respondents agreed with the statement: “Poland should claim reparations from Germany for the Second World War.” Only 20% disagreed while 22% had no opinion.

Support for seeking reparations was stronger among men (67%) than women (51%) and among residents of rural areas (60%) compared to those of big cities (50%).

In September last year, a CBOS poll for the Polish Press Agency (PAP) also found that 58% believed Poland should seek reparations with 31% opposed. In June 2023, a Social Changes survey for wPolityce found 54% in favour and 29% opposed.

Almost six million Polish civilians – around half of them Polish Jews – are estimated to have died as a result of Germany’s invasion and occupation. That represented 17% of Poland’s pre-war population and was the highest proportional death toll of any country during the Second World War.

The German occupiers also laid waste to many Polish cities – including the capital, Warsaw, which saw around 85% of its buildings destroyed – and plundered or destroyed much of Poland’s cultural heritage.

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The latest SW Research survey has come at a moment when the issue of reparations has returned to public debate. On Tuesday last week, the Polish and German governments held talks in Warsaw.

Media reports ahead of those meetings had suggested that Germany would announce a new form of compensation for surviving Polish victims of German-Nazi crimes. However, although Scholz did pledge to “try to provide support”, he did not provide any further details.

Moreover, any such measure would not be classified as war reparations. Berlin has consistently maintained that Poland waived the right to reparations in the 1950s, with later Polish governments confirming the validity of that renunciation in 1970 and 2004.

But the national-conservative Law and Justice (PIS), which ruled Poland from 2015 until the end of 2023, denied that a waiver of reparations had been legally issued by Poland. In 2022, the PiS government launched a claim for up to $1.3 trillion, which was promptly rejected by Germany.

Tusk’s new ruling coalition, which took office in December, has ended the push for reparations. However, its foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, has twice this year called for Germany to provide some kind of “compensation” for the enormous losses it caused Poland during the war.

When asked about the issue on Tuesday at his joint press conference with Scholz, Tusk said that he was “not disappointed in any way with the chancellor and the German government” over their approach.

“There is no amount of money that would compensate for what happened during World War Two,” he added. “In the legal sense, the problem of reparations has been described in government decisions and treaties, but one can draw different consequences and conclusions on what it really means.”

Tusk then noted that “in the formal and legal sense, reparations are closed from the point of view of Germany” before adding that Berlin “has arguments in favour of this position”.

Those words echo remarks by Tusk on a visit to Berlin in February, when he said that, “in a formal, legal, international sense, the issue of reparations was closed many years ago”.

In his remarks last week, Tusk also claimed that even an earlier PiS government had in 2006 confirmed Poland’s waiver of its right to reparations. However, a fact-check by Polish state TV found that the PiS government had not done so. Its article – which was later deleted – labelled Tusk’s remarks as “misleading”.

While speaking alongside Scholz, Tusk said that the German chancellor’s “words and declarations confirm the common belief in Poland that the waiver of reparations forced by history does not change the fact of how much Poland tragically lost in terms of people, property and territories as a result of the German attack”.

“If we hear today that Germany, not in the context of reparations, is ready to make decisions that can compensate those who were direct victims of the war…these are steps and signals in the right direction,” added the prime minister. “However, whether this will in any way compensate for the losses that Poland suffered, of course not.”

Tusk faced criticism from PiS, now in opposition, as well as some independent commentators for appearing to concede the German position that Poland has no route to pursue reparations and for failing to push more strongly for other forms of compensation. PiS has long accused Tusk of being subservient to Germany.

In response to such criticism, Tusk pointed to the fact that, while PiS regularly talked about obtaining reparations during its time in power, it achieved nothing in this regard.

“They ruin things, shift responsibility onto others, stamp their feet and put on patriotic faces, [whereas] we fix what we can,” wrote Tusk.

During his visit to Berlin earlier this year, Tusk also noted that the PiS government’s formal claim issued against Germany did not specifically mention “reparations”.

Main image credit: Dawid Zuchowicz / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

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.