Poland to demand $1.3T war reparations from Germany

By Jo Harper

WARSAW, Poland (AA) – Poland's ruling party leader said on Thursday that Warsaw would officially demand reparations from Berlin for losses caused by Germany in World War II, which is estimated to be 6.2 trillion zlotys ($1.3 trillion).

“Although the road will be long, we are confident that one day we will succeed in the issue of war reparations from Germany,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Law and Justice, told a news conference in Warsaw.

He said he expected a negative reaction from the German authorities, who long argued that such demands have no legal grounds.

“But such matters have to be fought for, sometimes for years. We do not promise it will be a quick success,” Kaczynski said.

“We only say that it is a Polish obligation, the elimination of a certain gap in our activity as a sovereign state, the fact that we finally report something that should have been reported a long time ago,” he added.

The Law and Justice has called for compensation several times since it came to power in late 2015, but Poland has not officially demanded reparations before.

Germany insists the Polish government waived its right to war reparations in 1953.

Nearly 6 million Poles were killed between 1939 and 1945 under German occupation.