Poland drops demand for WW2 compensation from Germany

Warsaw will instead focus on building a “safe future” with Berlin, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said

RT: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at a welcoming ceremony in Warsaw. © Getty Images / Andrzej Iwanczuk

Poland will no longer demand reparations from Berlin for the crimes committed by the Nazis in the country during the Second World War, the country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Wednesday after talks with new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Warsaw.

Calls for Germany to pay compensation resumed under the previous Polish government led by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled the country between 2015 and 2023. In 2022, Warsaw estimated that Berlin would need to pay 6.2 trillion Polish zloty (around $1.5 trillion) for the damages inflicted by the Nazi occupation.

When addressed on the issue during his joint press conference with Merz, Tusk replied by saying: “Has Germany ever compensated for the losses, the tragedy of the Second World War in Poland? No, of course not.”

“I am a historian… I could talk for hours about what this bill looks like. It was never repaid, but we will not be asking for it,” he stressed.

Merz also insisted that “the legal issues related to possible reparations have been resolved.” However, he added that “this does not mean that we cannot talk about joint projects and common ideas about how we see a future together.”

Ties between the two EU nations had been strained under previous German Chancellor Olaf Scholz due to disagreements on reparations, migration and other issues.

Despite acknowledging responsibility for the Nazi crimes, Germany had refused to pay reparations to Poland, arguing that the matter was resolved when Warsaw waived its right to restitution in 1953 under a deal with East Germany. According to Berlin, the compensation issue was definitively settled by the 1990 treaty on German reunification.

The German invasion of Poland in 1939 marked the beginning of the Second World War. The country remained under Nazi occupation throughout the conflict, being liberated in 1945 by the Soviet Army and local forces.