Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
A senior figure from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has called for Poland to pay his country €1.3 billion (5.5 billion zloty) as reparations for its “complicity” in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
His demand – the latest in a recent series of anti-Polish remarks by AfD figures – has been met with anger in Poland, with one government minister calling it “outrageous”.
1,3 Billionen Euro sollten als Reparationszahlung für die Komplizenschaft der Nord-Stream Sprengung genügen. Meine erste Amtshandlung als Finanzminister wird sein, diese Forderungen gegenüber Polen geltend zu machen.
Wer zuletzt lacht, lacht am besten. 🇵🇱💙 https://t.co/hR5pScfuUG
— Kay Gottschalk (@gottschalkmdb) January 21, 2026
On Wednesday, Kay Gottschalk, one of the founders of AfD and currently its parliamentary spokesman for financial affairs, responded on social media platform X to a post by Dominik Tarczyński, an MEP for Poland’s national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Tarczyński, a strong supporter of Donald Trump, celebrated that “Germany today got a slap in the face from Republican forces”. The context of his message was not made clear, but it may have been a reference to Trump’s threat to place tariffs on Germany in relation to the Greenland crisis.
Gottschalk then wrote: “€1.3 billion should suffice as a reparations payment for the complicity in the Nord Stream bombing. My first official act as finance minister will be to assert these claims against Poland. He who laughs last, laughs best.”
AfD has no immediate prospect of coming to power, with elections not due until 2029. But it is the largest opposition party in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, and, according to polling averages, is also currently the most popular party among voters, with support of around 26%.
Gottschalk’s reference to Nord Stream concerns the 2022 operation that saw explosives used to damage pipelines in the Baltic Sea that brought Russian gas to Germany, rendering them inoperable (though they were not functioning at that moment in any case, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine).
Poland had long criticised Germany over the pipelines, arguing that they helped fund Russia’s war machine and harmed Polish and Ukrainian interests. Many in Poland welcomed the sabotage that damaged Nord Stream. However, there is no evidence that Poland itself was complicit.
Last year, at Germany’s request, the Polish authorities detained a Ukrainian man, Volodymyr Zhuravlov, accused by German prosecutors of involvement in the sabotage operation. But a Polish court rejected a request to extradite him, a decision praised by figures in both Poland’s government and opposition.
Polish PM @donaldtusk says it is "not in the interest of Poland or of decency and justice" to extradite to Germany the Ukrainian man recently detained on a European Arrest Warrant for his alleged involvement in sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines https://t.co/W2Yfm4CcCn
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 8, 2025
Some in Germany condemned Poland for its support of Zhuravlov and refusal to extradite him. Such criticism came in particular from the AfD, which has long been accused of having sympathies towards and connections with Russia.
Gottschalk himself at the time accused the Polish state of “being an accomplice to terrorists”. AfD’s co-leader Tino Chrupalla declared that Poland was as great a threat to Germany as Russia and, as an example, pointed to the decision “not to extradite a terrorist to Germany”.
Meanwhile, Gottschalk’s use of the term “reparations” and his demand for €1.3 billion in his tweet this week was likely a reference to another area of tension between Poland and Germany.
In 2021, Poland’s former PiS government presented a demand to Germany for of $1.3 trillion in reparations for World War Two. That claim continues to be pursued by PiS-aligned President Karol Nawrocki, and is supported by most Poles. However, Germany argues that the case is legally closed already.
The co-leader of the far-right @AfD, Germany's largest opposition party, has suggested that Poland is as much of a threat to his country as Russia is https://t.co/2rhOuDhOtd
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 12, 2025
Gottschalk’s latest remarks prompted anger in Poland. Speaking to broadcaster Polsat, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, the labour minister and a member of The Left (Lewica), called them “absolutely outrageous words”.
They were also criticised by Krzysztof Bosak, one of the leaders of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), some of whose MEPs are part of the same group in the European Parliament as AfD.
“The Germans claimed [Nord Stream] was a business project, not a political one. If [so], then it should have been insured, instead of complaining now and fantasising about compensation (because that’s probably what they were after, not reparations),” wrote Bosak.
In November last year, a local AfD activist, Fabian Keubel, also prompted widespread anger in Poland by calling Poles “the African Americans of Europe” because they “see themselves as the great, pitiable, perennial victim of European history”.
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Olaf Kosinsky/Wikimedia Commons (under CC 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.
