OUR Poland he estimates that the losses he suffered during the Second World War because of this Germany they amount to 6.2 trillion. złoty (1.32 trillion US dollars, 1.3 trillion euros), the leader of the ruling nationalist party said today and said that Warsaw would officially demand damages.

Poland’s largest trading partner, as well as a member of the European Union and NATO, Germany has said in the past that all economic claims related to World War II have been settled.

The new estimate of reparations owed is higher than the $850 billion MP from the ruling party made in 2019. The ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) has repeatedly demanded reparations since coming to power in 2015, but Poland has not officially requested reparations. .

“The presented amount was accepted in the most limited, conservative way, it could have been increased,” PiS leader Yaroslav Kaczynski said at a press conference.

The bellicose stance towards Germany, which the PiS often uses to mobilize its electoral audience, has strained relations with Berlin. It intensified after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid criticism of Berlin’s dependence on Russian gas and its slowness in helping Kyiv.

About six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war, and Warsaw was razed to the ground after a 1944 uprising that killed about 200,000 civilians.

In 1953, the then communist government of Poland renounced all claims for war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union, which wanted to free East Germany, also a satellite of the USSR, from any debt. PiS says the deal is invalid because Poland was unable to agree on fair compensation.

Donald Tusk, leader of the main opposition party Civic Platform, said that Kaczynski’s statement “has nothing to do with reparations.”

“This is due to the internal political campaign to restore support for the ruling party,” he said.

PiS still leads most opinion polls, but its gap with Civic Platform has narrowed in recent months amid criticism over its handling of rising inflation and slowing economic growth.

“The question is considered overdue”

“The position of the German government is unchanged, the issue of reparations is closed,” said a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry.

“Poland refused further reparations long ago, in 1953, and repeatedly confirmed this refusal. This is the basis of today’s European order. Germany bears its political and moral responsibility for World War II,” the spokesman added.

Source: APE-MPE-Reuters-AFP.