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    Poland marks WWII anniversary with demand: Germany must pay
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    Poland marks WWII anniversary with demand: Germany must pay

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    4. bialymarshal on

      Yeah. Be in power for 8 years and some more before that and accept that nothing is due anymore because of international law and deals and suddenly start talking shit again when not in power. Classic pis move

    5. nimdull on

      Pogadać to se może. Jego pewność siebie odejdzie wraz z wojskami Stanów w europie. Okażę się, że poza blacha nic tu nie ma a deklaracja Polska jest do kosza.

    6. Wintermute841 on

      Ok cool, but they ( PiS ) literally had 8 years to do something about it ( Parliamentary majority + Presidency ) and apart from some perfomative gestures ( sending invoices to Germany ) they did nothing about it.

      Which leads everyone intelligent to assume that Nawrocki, lacking a Parliamentary majority, will not be able to do anything about it and that internal legal opinions obtained by PiS and not shared with the public indicate that obtaining reparations from Germany might legally be a lost cause.

    7. bannedByTencent on

      Jprdl, znowu ten szajs? Ile jeszcze będzie starzec jechał na tej narracji? Żenada i wstyd.

      Czekam na powrót tematu reparacji dla Żydów. A nie, zaraz….

    11. Wingedball on

      Some of the comments here are very short-sighted and conformist. Raising the issue of reparations does not only put some pressure on the German side, even if they never intend to do anything about it, but it raises awareness of German crimes. I’m sure not only the international community, but Poles themselves became more aware of the human and material losses that Poland endured during WWII. With that generation passing away, less and less people are aware of German crimes in Poland. Even amongst Germans themselves, younger Germans are less educated in regard to their ancestors’ destruction of Poland as evidenced by recent surveys. Thanks to the open debate about reparations, finally Poland has put a hard quantitative calculation on their losses in WW2. Some German redditors laughed that the tally came up to $1.3 trillion . Guess what, killing 6 million Polish citizens, levelling an entire capital city, and plundering wealth over 6 years won’t turn up to be a small amount.

      Now, for the naysayers. There was a bit of pressure on the German side as evidenced by the fact that Scholz promised support to living Polish victims (why weren’t they supported regardless) and that Germans decided to build the Polish-German House to commemorate the victims…. but that came up only after the reparations discussion. These are things that Germany should’ve done unprompted many years ago. If anything, raising the topic of reparations humbles the Germans who easily forget their past.

      Now for the firm believers of good German-Polish relations under Liberal rationalists and Realpolitik, what do you think of the German decision to give Namibia reparations after 100 years? What about German reluctance in funding restoration projects like rebuilding the Saxon place in Warsaw which was deliberately destroyed by their hands.

      I think the biggest takeaway from reparations is that Poles can make an assessment of their relations with Germans. Poles tallied up their losses, and went to their supposedly greatest friend in Europe only to be ridiculed and dismissed. Polish liberals weren’t successful either as some in the comments suggested that “populists” only gave lip service. There wasn’t any goodwill from the German side to right their wrong. I think revealing the true nature of the relationship between Poland and Germany was worth more than the commentators here are ready to admit. I’m sure many Poles were shocked by German attitudes about their accountability towards Poland.

    12. tenant1313 on

      Where are the reparations from the Russians? And Austro-Hungarians, and Swedes and The Mongols? Are we going to forget about those?

    15. Frandobrando on

      We definitely deserve reparations after the war and the “agreement” that was made between Poland and Germany wasn’t valid for many reasons. But chances are we’ll never get them, and they also had a very long time to actually put pressure on Germany while they were in power to strong-arm them into giving us reparations but didn’t so that’s on them.

    16. DueLion402 on

      I honestly cannot understand people who are like “oh, we are not going to talk about it cus our European cooperation” like my friends, German Ex colonies are getting reparations from Germany, yet we are denied those. Also it won’t go away, it will be just a stain upon German Polish relations, you cannot just pretend that destroying almost the whole country to the ground didn’t happen.

    17. FatBaldingLoser420 on

      This shit again?

      Would it be nice to get paid? Yes. Will it happen? No.

      There’s no reason to keep beating the dead horse.

    19. Swimming_Average_561 on

      Germany already gave up a significant portion of its land and has also compensated Poland handsomely through EU contributions. Poland is now rapidly catching up to germany in terms of GDP per capita. Why on earth does Nawrocki want reparations? Why punish Germans today who had nothing to do with the Nazi government? This idea is as silly as paying reparations to descendants of slavery.

    22. DirkUsed on

      The Polish president naturally has the right to demand reparations from Germany, but Germany will not pay anything voluntarily.

      The question then is: which court can Poland go to and demand reparations from Germany in proceedings whose decision, in the event of defeat, will then also be recognized by Germany?

      Then the lawyers and defense attorneys should please submit their pleadings and a decision will be made. What exactly is the problem here?

      Poland should be aware of one thing, however: the next step for right-wing populists in Germany will be to question the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border.

      This means that there will be renewed discussions about the fact that there are still “German” territories in the east that were illegally annexed after the war.

      And so it goes on… An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, we can argue again.

      As a German, I see only one thing: how the Putinists and Trumpists in Moscow and Washington are rubbing their hands together because they have succeeded in driving a serious wedge into the architecture of Europe.

      We Europeans are obviously too stupid to understand that Russia and now also the US have a clear desire to divide Europe so that it falls apart. If we as the EU do not resist this, we will be eliminated in this multipolar world and lose all influence. Militarily, we still have to build that up anyway, but economically we would be finished. We would only have losers; no one will win here.

      I understand when people say that the EU needs to be reformed and fundamentally renewed because it is simply too weak and we as Europeans, under pressure, have so far simply not managed to form and organize ourselves. But with our small-minded thinking, we will simply be dismantled, and then the nationalists will have two years to rejoice before they realize that they are simply stupid.

      Poland actually has the right man in power with Donald Tusk. Tusk knows all the institutions and has enormous experience. Tusk is the most experienced leader of a government within the EU. He could achieve a lot in Europe, for Europe and, of course, for Poland, but, and I apologize for my frustration, the Poles prefer to believe that he is a traitor and would sell Poland and all the other bullshit that is still circulating about him. And this is a shame, because now with this President and no further support by the voters he already is a kind of a lame duck. Sadly, but true.

      Just to make one thing clear: there is absolutely no political discussion in Germany about taking political advantage of Poland or seeing it as an opponent. I think the Germans are well aware of their historical responsibility towards Poland and are striving to continuously improving relations with Poland. I think we are already much further along in the relationship economically than the right-wing populists in Poland would have people believe.

    23. jaketherappa on

      PiS state of mind.

      Just like the communists after the war, they like to play the German card to get some primitive votes.

    25. Pikselardo on

      Ja was nie rozumiem że tak jedziecie po pomyśle odzyskania przez Polskę reperacji, no ludzie, zrobili to co nam zrobili, to niech zapłacą. Mimo iż że przegrali wojnę to przeskoczyli w PKB Francję i UK.

    30. pierdola91 on

      ^How to isolate us more from the EU and make us perfect targets for Russia.

      Good job, to the absolute fuckfaces that voted for this disgrace.