Berlin showing lack of willingness to talk about reparations: Polish Dep FM

The German Foreign Minister shows a lack of willingness to talk about the WWII reparations issue, Poland’s deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk said in an interview with the “Berliner Zeitung” daily.

“Ms. Annalena Baerbock is not available for talks,” he emphasized, adding that other German officials with whom he discussed the matter also displayed a negative attitude towards it.

“There is a misconception [among German officials] that Germany has dealt with this issue, that it is settled and closed. And the facts are different. Poland suffered gigantic losses and never received war reparations,” he appealed.

“To this day there is no Polish-German agreement. And Germany does not want dialogue. The situation is unacceptable,” Mularczyk said.

As the official then pointed out, there are survivors of the war who are still alive and still have no way of claiming compensation due to them.

“On the other hand, we see that Germany is paying high pensions to its Wehrmacht and SS soldiers, which causes great astonishment in Poland. On the one hand, the Germans condemn National Socialism, on the other - they pay pensions to Nazi functionaries. And they pay nothing to the Polish victims,” he stressed.

‘Time to end this injustice’

Mularczyk drew attention to the fact that back in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Berlin concluded bilateral agreements with various countries regarding reparations. “With Poland, Germany never concluded such an agreement. Only benefits were paid to victims of medical experiments and to forced laborers who worked in Germany during the war.”

“One million people received one-time benefits, the average was EUR 150 per person,” he said. “The amounts that the Poles received were 2 percent of the reparations paid in total… it is time to put an end to this injustice.”

According to calculations made by Polish government experts, Germany is still indebted to Poland over USD 1.5 trillion for losses suffered at the hands of German killers and plunderers during the Second World War.