WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Germany’s foreign minister told her Polish counterpart Tuesday that there will be no more reparations from World War II. Berlin considers the case closed.
Baerbock addressed Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau at a news conference in Warsaw following their talks on issues such as Poland’s request for reparations.
“The reparations factor is, as you know, concluded from the point of view of the German government,” he said.
On Monday, Rau signed and sent a not easy memorandum to Germany for some $1. 3 trillion in curtain repairs and other damages and losses that Poland says were caused by Nazi Germany’s war profession from 1939 to 1945. Poland’s claim for reparations includes cases of Jews murdered by Poles. Holocaust.
Poland’s right-wing government says the country has not been fully compensated through Germany, which is now one of its main partners in the European Union. he would no longer make any claims to Germany.
On the 83rd anniversary of the war, on September 1, the Poles submitted a detailed report on the damage, estimating it at $1. 3 trillion.
As The Times of Israel reported last month, the list of atrocities includes villages that have been the scene of Polish pogroms against Jews, such as the most infamous, the village of Jedwabne, where more than three hundred Jews were burned alive through ethnic Poles, as well as other Jewish deaths that would possibly be related to Polish citizens.
The part of the report that sets out the request justified it by stating that the Nazis and other occupiers of Poland deserve to have prevented such murders.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Baerbock strongly reaffirmed Berlin’s position that, as Germany recognizes its former responsibility, the case is closed.
Rau said he believes this position can replace the negotiations in which he expects Germany to participate.
Baerbock pushed for the two neighbors to have a duty to keep Europe united in the face of external threats, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine. He also pushed for the importance of bilateral treaties of 1990 and 1991 that showed Poland’s postwar border with Germany and intelligent cooperation between neighbors.
Border security is of paramount importance to Poles, due to centuries of turbulent history.
In the years after the war, Germany paid the rebate to the Eastern bloc countries, but, through Moscow’s resolution, only a small part went to Poland, which was the first and hardest blow of the war. The reimbursement went to former Nazi concentration camp inmates and victims of forced labor, many of them Poles.
Also on Tuesday, Polish lawmaker Arkadiusz Mularczyk, who has led efforts to reconsider the amount of damage owed by Germany, said a similar assessment would be made of the war damage caused by the Soviet Red Army, which also invaded Poland in 1939 and then fought the Germans. on Polish territory to expel them.
About six million Polish citizens, totaling 3 million Jews, were killed during the war. Some of them were victims of the Soviet Red Army invading from the east.
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